A Muggle in the Ministry of Magic
by Tegildess
Summary: As Percy Weasley's children know, it's tough being Hufflepuff in a Gryffindor family. But thwarting James Potter's antics get less important as family politics begin to mix with Ministry politics among the most ambitious, scheming Weasleys at Hogwarts...
1. At the Hogwarts Express

A/N: Sequel to A Muggle in Magical Britain, featuring all the Weasley/Potter children at Hogwarts (and many more, of course). Hope you enjoy it! Disclaimer: Not mine. The Hogwarts Express 

Kathryn Weasley took a deep breath and broke away from hugging her mother. She knew that she should have been used to going away to school every year by then, but even at age fifteen, she always became incredibly homesick once her family arrived at King's Cross.

"We'll write all the time, Kate," her mum said, squeezing her only daughter's shoulder.

Kate nodded, looking at her immaculately polished black shoes. She knew, without a doubt, that she would cry if she looked up.

"And you'll be home for Christmas, and that's not terribly far off, is it?"

Kate nodded again and managed to compose herself enough to look up and give her mother a watery smile.

"No, it's not so far," she said quietly, reaching over her trunk to hug her father next. Mr. Weasley was looking particularly pleased about something that morning, and Kate didn't have to think very hard to figure what it was.

"Train's about to leave, Kate!" her older brother Ignatius called pompously, making his way over to load Kate's trunk. "You'd better get over to the prefect's carriage now."

"All right, all right!" Kate replied nervously, unconsciously fingering her bright yellow prefect's badge. She'd examined it so closely over the past summer that, even without looking, Kate could see it clearly in her head– a bold black P superimposed over an alert-looking badger. A Hufflepuff prefect. Her parents had been so proud.

She watched Ignatius smile smugly as he lifted her crate, not quite high enough to obscure his own yellow badge. Ignatius Weasley was the first Hufflepuff Head Boy in decades, something her father never seemed to tire of inserting into even the most unlikely conversations.

"_Growing a vegetable garden, are you? My wife has a flower garden, just planted some lilies. We have a niece named Lily too, eleven, heading off to Hogwarts. She might be sorted into Hufflepuff like Kate and Ignatius. Prefects, both, you know, and Ignatius is the first Hufflepuff Head Boy in decades…"_

Kate assumed it was a mark of how well she'd been brainwashed that she had almost grown to be impressed by this quality of her father's, though she didn't feel she herself would ever be quite so adept. Ignatius was about as good, but then, he was practically her father's clone.

"_Vacationing in Spain, eh? Yes, we went to Spain years ago. Kate insisted on being called "Isabella" all month. Really just the latin form of "Elizabeth," of course. Oh, and did you hear? Elizabeth MacMillan's the new Head Girl. I'm quite pleased to be working with her, quite pleased. I'm the new Head Boy, after all, and the first Hufflepuff one in decades, you see."_

"Love you Mum," Kate whispered as she gave her mother one last squeeze. Ignatius grabbed her arm and yanked her up onto the train just as it began to move "Love you Dad!"

"Christmas, sweetie!" Mrs. Weasley called. And Mr. Weasley: "Mind your brother now!"

Kate pressed her hand up to the window to wave goodbye, but in a moment and a flash of green, they'd rounded a bend into empty country and rolling hills.

"You shouldn't be too homesick this year," Ignatius said in what Kate figured her thought was a reassuring voice. "You'll have prefect duties and OWLs to worry about– you'll just be too busy! But come on, we need to get to the prefect meeting. Can't be late first day on the job, now, can we?"

Kate nodded and followed her brother past all the quickly-filling compartments to the prefect carriage, no doubt to meet all the miserably dull people she'd be spending most of the year with and berating herself silently for being so ungrateful.

There could be worse things than having an overprotective older brother, she mused. An underprotective brother, maybe. Lily Potter simply _delighted_ in telling her about all the horrible tricks James played on her when they were little– like switching her spaghetti for worms, or pretending he saw the Grim every time she'd come around, or tricking her into believing that the Sorting Hat ate your face if you weren't good enough for any House. Growing up with Ignatius, life had been a lot safer. He'd never lied to Kate, or pulled a prank on her, or allowed her to get into any sort of dangerous situations (including playing with James Potter, who he claimed was a bad influence). But then again, life had been a lot more boring too.

"Oy, Kate!" someone called from a nearby compartment. "Are you going to the prefect meeting? It hasn't started, has it?"

Kate turned to find herself face to face with Ravi Singh, Ravenclaw, who was one of her favorite fellow fifth years.

"Hi Ravi," she replied, brightening up for the first time all morning. "We're just going there, you're not late. I–"

"But you will be if you keep dawdling," Ignatius cut in, looking down at Ravi severely from behind his thick glasses.

"Hi Ignatius," said Ravi, unphased. "Have a good summer?"

Ignatius simply pursed his lips and turned his attention back to finding the prefect's carriage. Ravi grinned at Kate, and she nearly swooned. He was brilliant, and really rather good-looking, and– did she mention brilliant? For whatever, reason, though, Ignatius had never really considered Ravi Singh appropriate company for his little sister, and they'd never been able to spend much time with each other outside of classes. There looked to be hope for fifth year, though, Kate thought happily.

They had arrived.

"All right, settle down everyone!" Ignatius shouted to a perfectly orderly group of students sitting quietly in the prefect's carriage. Kate grinned. Everything seemed so funny all of a sudden, and it struck her as positively hilarious that so many of her classmates would be afraid of her brother. She smiled and Ravi and sat down.

"Houses together!" Ignatius ordered. Kate sighed and had the feeling that her brother was only saying that to keep her from sitting next to Ravi. What _was_ his problem, anyway?

"I _said_, Houses together!"

Kate stood up and crossed to the compartment to find an empty seat next to one of her least favorite fellow classmates, who also happened to be the other Hufflepuff prefect.

"Hi William," she said wearily, sensing that Ignatius was watching to make sure she was polite. The MacMillans were good family friends.

"Good afternoon, Kathryn," William replied, smiling so smugly that Kate would have liked nothing better than to say something incredibly rude and inappropriate… particularly because she got the feeling that part of the smugness came from her being forced to sit in that certain seat. "I hope you had a good vacation."

"Yes, I did," said Kate woodenly. "And you?"

But just as William MacMillan opened his mouth to relate the status of his summer break, the door to the compartment swung open with a bang.

"Come on, Ravi, hand it over," a tall boy with messy black hair said, holding out his hand expectantly. Kate had never figured out just what made it so, but there was always a distinctly disreputable air that clung to the boy…

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Ravi, not so innocently.

The boy with black hair laughed. "And I'm _Ignatius's_ brother," he said with a mischievous grin. "I know you have it. And maybe you think you should keep it because you're some law-abiding _prefect_ now, Rav, but I don't think so. Come on. Give it here."

"I swear," said Ravi. "I don't have it. And trust me, there's no prefect at Hogwarts that could keep… er… _it_ from you."

Kate looked up at her brother, who was beet-red with anger. She shuddered. She was definitely glad not to be on the receiving end of that disapproval. Any minute, and he'd explode. Ten… nine… eight…

"You swear, eh?" asked the boy, still grinning. "Do you _solemnly swear,_ Rav?"

Ravi stood up. "Sshh!" he hissed. "I gave it to Pre because Al was asking too many questions and I thought he'd have a look through your things. All right? Happy?"

The black-haired boy looked relieved, like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. "Oh," he said. "Well, I'd better go deal with Al then. He needs to learn to keep his nose out of our business, if you know what I mean."

Kate stole another glance at Ignatius. Three… two… one…

"AND YOU NEED TO LEARN TO SHOW SOME RESPECT!" Ignatius shouted, positively livid. "TERM MIGHT NOT HAVE STARTED YET, BUT MARK MY WORDS, JAMES POTTER, YOU HAD BETTER TOW THE LINE THIS YEAR!"

Kate cringed. Maybe she'd been deluding herself– there was no hope. Ravi Singh was James Potter's best friend.


	2. Avada Kedavra the Hat

A/N: Yes– I realize it's been a _very_ long delay since the first chapter, but I think it's safe to say the updates won't be nearly so erratic from this point. Anyway, I proudly present Chapter Two of A Muggle in the Ministry of Magic:

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Avada Kedavra the Hat**

Kate could have kissed Professor Longbottom when he opened the doors of the Great Hall to let in the trembling first years for the Sorting ceremony. Of course, that would hardly be appropriate– Professor Longbottom was a good family friend, and a professor in any case– but she figured she was just so relieved to have a legitimate reason to cut off Will MacMillan's tiresome conversation that her brain was misfiring.

"Oh! Look! The first years!" she said, rather unnecessarily. Even William, with his endless droning stream of politics and prefectual concerns and awkward compliments had snapped his head around to watch the tiny (had she– had _Iggy_, for that matter– really ever been so small?) new members of the Hogwarts family enter. Kate beamed. She loved the Sorting.

Course, it was hardly for the same reason her brother loved it. Ignatius kept a highly impressive mental tally Kate admired rather against her will. With barely a moment's pause, he could recite the Hogwarts houses of every relative. And every year the child of a family member or family friend entered Hogwarts, her brother brought out The Chart. Kate had seen it so many times and in so many forms that The Chart was fully burned into her mind:

_A Complete and Accurate List of Current, Past, and Potential Sortings for Children and Friends of the Weasley and Potter Families– by which plans can be made for the Strengthening of Hufflepuff House and the Restoration of Order–originally composed and annually updated by Ignatius Weasley:_

(Along with weak eyes, a propensity to pontificate tirelessly on dreary topics, a prematurely receding hairline, and habit of snoring, Ignatius had also inherited his father's love of syntactically complicated titles.)

_Percy and Audrey (nee Stevens) Weasley– children Ignatius (Hufflepuff), Kathryn (Hufflepuff), and Arthur (Squib)_

_Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour_ (Aunt Fleur insisted on her first name at all times– as much as she loved Bill, being known to society as "Mrs. Weasley" was more than she could bear)– _Victoire (Gryffindor), Dominique (Ravenclaw_, but that hardly mattered, because Ravenclaw was "_nearly_ as good as Gryffindor," as James declared. And Dominique was beautiful. _She_ could get away with things Kate never could),_ and Louis (Gryffindor)_

_Charlie Weasley– no children_

_Ronald and Hermione (nee Granger) Weasley– Rose (Gryffindor) and Hugo (incoming first-year)_

_Harry and Ginny (nee Weasley) Potter– James Sirius (Gryffindor), Albus Severus (Gryffindor), and Lily Lily (incoming first-year)_. Kate always thought it sweet how James and Lily used their full names so Al wouldn't feel so unusual introducing himself as "Albus Severus." Perhaps they weren't so bad after all…? When she mentioned this to Ignatius, he recited a litany of James Potter's crimes against humanity– rule-breaking, mischief, disturbing the peace, and ultimately the destruction of Western Civilization as they knew it. She didn't try to defend any of the Potters ever again.

_Teddy Lupin (Gryffindor_– he was virtually a Potter anyway)

Kate found the uniformity of the older generation mildly depressing, but there was hope– albeit very, very little– for the cousins. And this year, two cousins would be Sorted. Was there a chance…?

There was a small amount of diversity among the family friends, however, and they made The Chart as well:

_Rolf and Luna (nee Lovegood) Scamander– the twins, Lorcan and Lysander (both Gryffindor)_

_Neville and Hannah (nee Abbott) Longbottom– Augusta Alice (Gryffindor_, and she went by her full name simply to be difficult, Kate surmised, although the alliterative quality of the two names together _was_ nice)_ and Frank Franklin (Gryffindor_, and for a while, Kate had been certain that _he_ was only Franklin, but stuttered)

_Ernie and Marietta (nee Edgecombe) MacMillan– Elizabeth (Ravenclaw), William (Hufflepuff– _she wished _this_ was not the case)_, and Everett (incoming first-year)_

_Kazi and Parvati (nee Patil) Singh– Preyanka (Gryffindor), and then her cousin:_

_Ravi and Padma (nee Patil) Singh _(When she was young, Kate had been grateful not to be a twin, as experience seemed to teach that twins could only marry _other_ twins. She had felt sorry for the poor Scamanders)– _Ravi Jr. (Ravenclaw)_

And so much for geneaology.

Ignatius was as committed to family politics as Ministry politics, and Kate, for her part, found them equally tedious. Suffering through the _Could so-and-so possibly make Hufflepuff this year?_ conversations September after September after September was, in her always-overlooked opinion, ridiculous. Why did it matter if Hugo or Lily were in Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff, or even Slytherin for that matter? What was the point of scheming to get them one place or another? (Arthur was even more militantly opposed to his older brother's convoluted contingency planning, and could be counted upon to stalk out of the room in a silent fury should the topic arise– being non-magical and gloriously independent, if isolated, the boy could not be called back with a sharp command… as Kate could be.)

"_The point,"_ Ignatius would say, skewering her with a glare as sharp as an icicle (and nearly as much warmth), _"Is that James Potter holds complete sway over the Gryffindor side of the family here at Hogwarts, and it's my job as Head Boy– and yours as Prefect– to extirpate that sort of troublemaking."_

Observing with a horrified sort of admiration the vitriolic tone, Kate didn't need a dictionary to figure out what "extirpate" meant. It was the sort of tone she imagined someone would use when casting an Unforgivable Curse. _Crucio!_ _Extirpate!_

For Iggy, James Potter's rule-breaking ethos was no trifling matter. And as much as she found the whole thing ridiculous, Kate had to admire her older brother's commitment.

Not to mention, it was difficult being one of the three Weasleys in the world _not_ in Gryffindor. The reminders were painfully ubiquitous.

Like a slip in conversation:

"_You don't really think I'm going to get Slytherin, do you James?" _That had been Al two years back. He'd been so nervous.

"_How many times do I have to tell you? You've got nothing to worry about. Our whole family's in Gryffindor!"_ Kate had been sitting nearby, looking at her feet very intently. The tortured twist of the shoelaces, tied too tightly on her left foot– she feared loss of circulation– was utterly absorbing… or so she hoped it appeared. _"Er… and Hufflepuff, I mean,"_ James quickly remedied. Not quick enough.

Like a Christmas sweater from Grandmum Weasley: in the wrong colors two years in a row, because she'd never needed to make a _black_ and gold one before. (Not to mention that time when the sweater said M instead of K, and Ignatius's had an L. Nobody had fully explained that one away. Kate's Mum had told her in confidence that even magic couldn't fully prevent Alzheimer's, but she was a nervous liar and not highly convincing.)

And like her first few years at Hogwarts, when making new friends always began with– "I'm Kate Weasley," and the inevitable caveat– "No, not _that_ Weasley."

The more she remembered, the angrier she became. It wasn't fair! There was nothing wrong with her House at all, or she and her brothers. Rose was a prefect, but so was she. Rose got perfect O's, but Kate had a stronger work ethic. And no one in _her_ family had ever had a detention. James, on the other hand, had served more time than even Ignatius could keep straight. Kate and Ignatius could match them point by point– and Arthur was clever too, even if he wasn't a wizard. And _yet_, by merit of being Gryffindor, their cousins were automatically better. Just because they had famous, heroic parents, _they_ were more interesting. The whole situation seemed unjust.

Perhaps it _would_ be nice to have another Weasley ally in Hufflepuff– not only so Ignatius could better expand his vendetta against James Potter– but because being one of three Weasleys not in Gryffindor was lonely.

Kate turned to watch the remaining first years huddling together nervously in the center of the Great Hall. As her mind wandered, more than half had already been Sorted– there was Will's brother Everett sitting across the table next to Ignatius, beaming. And with the rest of the first years, there was Lily on the edge– highly visible with her brilliant red hair on a head nearly six inches above the rest of the crowd. Hugo wasn't as noticeable (nor as tall, much to his ten-year-old chagrin), but Kate could find him easily– always but a few feet from Lily. Hugo, possibly, could be a Hufflepuff; he and Kate had always gotten along.

"Lily Potter!" Professor Longbottom read as the red-haired girl approached the Sorting Hat. Kate was impressed– Lily's gait was serenely confident; she didn't seem at all afraid. Compare that to Kate, who had been so dizzy she was lucky to have kept her perch on the stool that evening, as the Sorting Hat whispered– _"Another Weasley, eh? A Weasley and something else– aha! But I shouldn't tell you, should I? Not if you don't know already. But _I _know, yes, _I_ know which side you come from. Not ambitious, not terribly clever, no, nor very brave. But you're loyal, that's true, yes, loyal to your brother. Wouldn't want to separate from your brother, would you?"_

At this point, Kate had regained a semblance of composure.

"_What do you mean, something else?" _she had thought, bewildered. _"What else?" _Perhaps it was something bad!

And then, the Hat laughed horribly, voice grating inside her head, and shouted "Hufflepuff!" Kate had been incredibly relieved. Whatever else that awful thing had said or indicated could be quickly forgotten now– she was with Ignatius, and he was never so ambiguous.

But sitting so straight and upright on the stool, Hat obscuring her fiery hair, Lily was grinning as she listened to the voice which no one else could hear. It, apparently, wasn't telling _her_ anything she didn't know already.

"GRYFFINDOR, of course!" the Hat exclaimed, the Gryffindor table bursting into applause nearly before the pronouncement was made. Naturally, there had never been any doubt on that count.

But the end of the alphabet was approaching, and with it– "Hugo Weasley!"

Kate watched excitedly, gripping her hands together tightly at her chin like her mother did when she prayed. Maybe if Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione's son wasn't in Gryffindor, her and Ignatius's deviation might be considered more acceptable. Maybe they wouldn't be the lesser Weasleys anymore. Maybe…

Hugo sat unsteadily on the stool– much more like Kate had– and his face registered pure terror. Kate felt the sharp pain of sympathy in her chest, and intertwined her fingers ever more closely. The boy's round face was quivering– he might be near to tears.

The Sorting Hat seemed to take an unusually long time with Hugo, but that might simply have been Kate's own anxiety. In any case, after a moment or a century, its wide, jagged brim opened wide and bellowed:

"GRYFFINDOR!"

There was raucous cheering, and Kate felt her stomach plummet. Across the table, Ignatius glowered, and Kate knew that her brother was crossing two more names off The Chart. She also realized, half a second later, that they were the _last_ two names. The Complete and Accurate List for Potential Sortings and the Strengthening of Hufflepuff House was over and done with. They had failed abysmally– there were no more Weasley children left.

Kate glanced over at the Gryffindors– James had vaulted onto the surface table and was trying to drag Lily and Hugo up with him. Al, eyes wide, watched the advance of a scandalized Professor's approach fearfully. Rose smiled primly (_smugly_, Kate decided unfairly), and carried on a conversation with Preyanka and Augusta Alice. She ached to be sitting there, to be part of Rose's crowd, but tore herself away from the scene and surveyed her own circle. Not particularly clever, nor terribly brave, but loyal if anything. And persevering.

"Avada _Kedavra_ the Hat," Will swore darkly. "I'm really sorry Ignatius."

"I'm not," Kate said. _Blasphemy!_ "Well I'm _not_, Iggy," she insisted. "Why shouldn't we be good enough on our own merit? We don't need a Potter or anyone else. We don't give up yet."

Ignatius watched his sister suspiciously. "What are you saying?"

Kate looked from her brother, to Will, and back again. "James Potter's up to something."

"He's _always_ up to something," Will clarified.

Kate nodded. "Agreed. But whatever it is– we're going to figure it out. Even without Lily or Hugo or anyone else." She steeled herself for the final vault– because after this, there was no going back to the comforting uncertainty of volatile loyalties: she was on Ignatius's side, forever now. "I think I have a plan."

**A/N:** For the sake of clarity, the following is Ignatius Weasley's Complete and Accurate List... etc, et al... with years as well as Houses, in a more orderly format. It might be helpful:

_Percy Weasley (G) and Audrey Stevens:_

- _Ignatius (7th year Hufflepuff)_

- _Kathryn (5th year Hufflepuff)_

- _Arthur (Squib)_

_Bill Weasley (G) and Fleur Delacour:_

- _Victoire (1 year out of Hogwarts, Gryffindor)_

- _Dominique (4th year Ravenclaw)_

- _Louis (2nd year Gryffindor)_

_Charlie Weasley (G): no children_

_George Weasley (G) and Angelina Johnson (G):_

- _Fred (4th year Gryffindor)_

_Ronald Weasley (G) and Hermione Granger (G):_

- _Rose (3rd__ year Gryffindor)_

- _Hugo (1st year)_

_Harry Potter (G) and Ginevra Weasley (G):_

- _James Sirius (5th year Gryffindor)_

- _Albus Severus (rd year Gryffindor)_

- _Lily Luna (1st year)_

- _Teddy Lupin (2 years out of Hogwarts, Gryffindor)_

_Luna Lovegood (R) and Rolf Scamander:_

- _Lorcan (2nd year Hufflepuff)_

- _Lysander (2nd year Hufflepuff)_

_Neville Longbottom (G) and Hannah Abbot (H):_

- _Augusta Alice (4th year Gryffindor)_

- _Frank Franklin (2nd year Gryffindor)_

_Ernie MacMillan (H) and Marietta Edgecombe (R):_

- _Elizabeth (7th year Ravenclaw)_

- _William (5th year Hufflepuff)_

- _Everett (1st year)_

_Parvati Patil (G) and Kazi Singh (R):_

- _Preyanka (4th year Gryffindor)_

_Padma Patil (R) and Ravi Singh (R):_

- _Ravi Jr. (5th year Ravenclaw)_


	3. James Potter and Company

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.

**James Potter and Company**

James Potter never said anything he didn't mean. So when he and Ravi bent over the Marauder's Map– placing it on the Common Room table with a sort of reverential awe– and, in a hushed voice, James tapped his wand on the aging parchment and whispered "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he meant it.

A small dot moved haltingly back and forth in the hallway just outside, according to the Map, as though the body it belonged to was stumbling occasionally as she unintentionally drifted off into a standing sleep. The body belonged to Kate Weasley.

James figured (correctly) that Kate had been instructed particularly strictly by her dictatorial brother not to talk to him this year– he could imagine _Iggy's_ nasally voice: _"You're a prefect, Kathryn. You have a responsibility to your school. Not to mention OWLs are coming up, and if you're planning on any sort of decorous career, then–"_

Blah, blah, blah. James had enough trouble paying attention to _professors_. If he had a brother who tried to lecture him, he'd go completely bonkers. That's why James always tried to set an _example_ for Al, rather than preach– actions speak louder than words, right? When Al did something he disapproved of (nose about in his brother's private business, for a recent example), James never responded with some sort of tedious sermon. Al would learn much faster if James let the tarantula he slipped into his brother's trunk do all the talking.

Well, he didn't say he set a _good_ example.

In any case, even for all Kate's avoidance of James over the past week this new term, he knew one person she couldn't _help_ but talk to.

Ravi sighed. "James– maybe this isn't a good idea," he said, looking at the drowsy dot on the parchment, worried. "Why do we have to do this during Kate's watch anyway? If _I_… er, _accidentally_ fall asleep during _my_ night on patrol, then we don't have to get any third party in trouble."

Ravi had very simply wondered if he and Kate had any night on hall patrol together in the next month, and she had quite readily rattled off the days she was on watch. Unfortunately, there weren't any matches. That was a real pity for Kate, but it was a bonus for James.

"Look, Ravi," James said with an exaggerated sigh. "If you really think we shouldn't go through with this, then I'm all with you."

Ravi frowned, suspicious. "What are you trying to do, James?"

"Reverse psychology," James said with a careless shrug. "Is it working?"

Ravi seemed at a loss for words. He did not share James's gift for following completely illogical arguments.

"Anyway," he continued. "If _you_ 'fell asleep' on _your_ watch and I got caught, everyone would suspect you were in on it with me. Of course, that would be true, but it would be _bad_. Kate's the only other prefect we can blackmail, and this way, if we get caught and Kate says it was an accident, no one will doubt that. Kate's one of the _good_ Weasleys, 'member?"

Ravi groaned. "Let's practice not saying 'blackmail' with such absolute glee, all right?"

"All right then– _Influence_, with our incredible powers of persuasion." James grinned. "Besides, we already went to the trouble of sneaking you all the way over here from Ravenclaw Tower. We can't waste the opportunity." He paused. "You know, we really should've been in the same House. You being a Ravenclaw is causing undue complications."

"Maybe it's you that's causing the complications."

James laughed. "No, no that's definitely not the case. If I was in Ravenclaw, we'd never get _anything _done."

"Would that really be such a bad thing?"

James glanced at the map. The dot that was Kate Weasley was moving even more slowly. Poor Kate. She had never been able to stay awake very late– he had derived much amusement from waking her up with a great clatter every New Year's at midnight, as she could be counted on to drop off well before ten. As a responsible prefect, she would normally be patrolling with a fellow prefect, to help keep alert, but good ol' William MacMillan (alas) had been stricken by a mysterious bout of nausea after he ate some of the toffee pudding at dinner that night (_here's a hint, Will– it wasn't toffee)_. By the time Kate found out, it was too late to find a replacement.

"Ready?" James asked his friend.

Ravi groaned. "Okay– let's go."

Midnight escapades through the castle had become very difficult ever since James's dad discovered his invisibility cloak missing– and the day before the Hogwarts Express left, too! So close! James had tried to hide it in his owl's, Sir Pigwidgeon II's, cage, but the stupid bird kept hooting whenever he saw the tips of his feathers disappear. It had been incredibly unfortunate. Luckily, by the time Mr. Potter remember to check if the Marauder's Map was still stowed safely behind the family portrait on the wall of his study, it was too late. But even that gain didn't help the fact that so many extra precautions had to be taken when the two boys would have to sneak around through the corridors _completely visible._

James nudged the portrait hole entrance open as slowly and gently as he could– it wouldn't do to wake the Fat Lady and be seen. She snored on. And leaning against the railing, nodding off herself, was an exhausted Kate.

"James!" Ravi hissed. "This is great! She really is asleep– no need to use our incredible powers of persuasion. Let's just get out of here now and–"

It would have been safer, yes, and more prudent, but half of the fun of this sort of adventure was the opportunity to corrupt Ignatius Weasley's perfect little sister.

"_Kate!_" he hissed, poking at the drowsy girl with the tip of his wand. "_Kaaaa-tiiieee!_"

She jolted awake. "I wasn't sleeping!" Kate exclaimed. "I was… er… memorizing ancient runes! Yes! In my head!" She rubbed her eyes wearily (which didn't quite help her frantic argument) until James and Ravi came into focus.

"Oh, thank goodness," she said with relief. "I thought it was Ignatius."

James and Ravi glanced at each other warily.

"You're _glad_ it's us?" Ravi asked, incredulous. "You realize we're sneaking out of the common room in the middle of the night, don't you? And that you're a prefect? Not to mention _I'm_ a prefect too…?"

"Well don't spell it out for her," James muttered.

"Oh, I was hoping you were planning on sneaking out tonight!" she said, her round face brightening. "That's why I had to get rid of Will… he really shouldn't have eaten so much of that pudding. Don't know why he kept throwing up, though– I only gave him a sleeping draught. Must've made a mistake somewhere…"

James and Ravi grimaced.

"Yeah… I don't think Will's going to be recovering any time soon," James said hesitantly. "We might have– er– never mind."

"_Anyway_," Ravi prodded.

"Yes! Anyway!" James continued. "Why aren't you rattling off rules from the Prefect's Handbook or quoting your brother or something?"

"Like I said," Kate repeated. "I _wanted_ you to sneak out."

James blanched. "Bloody hell, it's an ambush. Rav– we can get you back to the tower fastest if–"

"Oh, no– no, that's not what I meant!" Kate said hurriedly. She blushed slightly. "I– well… I wanted to ask you something."

James and Ravi exchanged a knowing glance. Kate frowned.

"Are you reading each other's minds or something?" she asked. "Because you keep giving each other these weird looks…"

James shrugged. "Possibly. We're definitely not _hiding_ anything. Notoriously bad occlumency runs in the family. What's your excuse, Rav?"

"What he means to say is–" Ravi was cut off by a flippant James Potter.

"Yes, Ravi would be happy to go to Hogsmeade with you on the next vacation weekend. Yes? Yes." James crossed his arms impatiently. "Does that answer whatever you wanted to ask us? Because we have a heist."

"_James!_" Ravi hissed.

"It's okay," said Kate, fairly calm, despite the fact that her face had suddenly grown as red as her hair. It was a trait that ran in _her_ family too. "I'm not going to tell. And actually, what I wanted to ask was… well… Ignatius and I got in a fight."

"That's not exactly a question."

"I know– I know," she continued quickly. "What I mean is– we got in a fight, and now… well, I've decided that I don't want anything to do with him anymore! Him or his rules or his protocol. I'm going to decide for myself what I want."

"Still not a question."

"I know!" she exclaimed. The Fat Lady stirred and rolled over in her sleep. Kate, James, and Ravi hastily sidled out of her line of vision. Kate took a deep breath and looked James straight in the eye. She was extremely nervous, and the redness hadn't quite drained from her face.

"What I really wanted to ask is– can I join you?"


	4. At Breakfast

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**At Breakfast**

Rose had seen the argument.

It had happened in the Library. She had been sitting at her usual table, the slightly elliptical one between the third and fourth shelves of herbology books. _They_ had been two tables down and to the right. She had considered saying hello, but _they_ had looked so positively furious– glowering at each other venomously as they variously scribbled on their rolls of parchment and scowled off into the distance– that she decided it might be more prudent not to get in the middle of what was clearly building up to be an emotional explosion of some sort. She, after all, had had her own work to do– a speculative paper on whether or not (and if so, to what extent) Oliver Cromwell had used magic to provoke Parliament into the English Civil War. Of course, _some_ historians still doubted that Cromwell had been a wizard at all– the usual argument ran along the lines of him seeming too much like the perfect narrow-minded Muggle archetypical figure to have any magical capabilities– but she figured that was just wishful thinking on the part of the magical community, and Rose was certain that first-hand accounts from the Rump Parliament made very clear that–

"Rose! Rose! Snap out of it!" James interjected impatiently. "You were talking about the Fight."

"Right!" Rose said, nodding briskly. She could get very absorbed in her schoolwork.

But _that_ particular time, she had found it incredibly difficult to concentrate. The way Ignatius and Kate had been scowling at each other… of course, Ignatius scowled at everybody, so that was nothing terribly unique… but Kate was usually so cheerful! _Anyway_, Rose had sensed that things were about to go downhill very, _very_ rapidly.

Sure enough, Kate had– after a few more minutes of unpleasant silence– thrown her quill down and exclaimed, tearfully:

"I told you I couldn't do this! I _hate_ Arithmancy, and I'm useless at it, so why should I keep torturing myself?"

Ignatius had told her to quiet down– it was a Library after all, and people were staring, which was true, although Rose had done her best not to gape too obviously. They were family, and Kate would naturally be embarrassed when she calmed down. Kate had a habit of getting embarrassed easily, Rose had noticed that, not that there was anything _wrong_ with being sensitive to other people's opinions, but really, when you're living with a large number of peers for an extended period of time, it's only natural that–

"Er, Rose? James is about to strangle you…" Preyanka Singh prodded, watching James warily.

Rose crossed her arms defensively. "I'm just trying to be thorough," she said. "Just because you never insist on accuracy doesn't mean it's not a vital part of the story's background."

"Well why– don't– we– get– back– to– the– story– then– my– dear– cousin," James said, slowly, from between clenched teeth. Rose took the hint:

Kate had replied– loudly– that she didn't care if people stared (Rose continued, also commenting that such a statement from Kate Weasley was out of character). Her classmates had stared, after all, when she hadn't been able to follow the lecture that day, or the day before, or the day before _that_ day. She was going to fail, and for no better reason than because _Ignatius_ thought she should continue with the hated class.

Ignatius, to his credit, had remained fairly calm. Trying to calm down his sister, however, he was less successful. He reminded Kate that it was _she_ who had decided she wanted to work at St. Mungo's eventually, and being a Healer required certain (difficult) courses, Arithmancy among them. Certain goals required certain sacrificed.

Kate proceeded to use his excessive use of the word "certain" as evidence that he was a pompous control freak. Ignatius replied that it was for evidence and to create a unifying sense of parallelism. Using the word "parallelism" in daily conversation, Kate rebutted, only supported _her_ argument that he was a condescending prat.

"And they went on debating grammar and syntax for a while…" Rose said, almost apologetically. Some things were too sordid to repeat in public.

"Only Uncle Percy's kids," James said with a low whistle. "That's actually kind of impressive."

"_So_," Rose continued:

After that, Kate had packed up her things and left in a huff. Rose had seen her later that day between classes, and asked if everything was all right. Kate had seemed cheerful, and replied that she felt wonderful now that she was dropping Arithmancy.

"She transferred into Muggle Studies," Rose said, disdainfully. "Obviously only because it's the easiest elective."

"Hey!" James replied, defensive. "_I'm_ taking that class."

"My point exactly…" Rose muttered.

James considered some sort of insulting comment about Rose's hair that day, but decided against it. There were more important things to worry about, like the mysterious case of Kate Weasley's bizarre fraternal disloyalty.

He craned his neck to look across the Great Hall at the Hufflepuff table. Sure enough, Kate and Ignatius were sitting nowhere near each other, and both looked sullen. Kate also looked exhausted, which in itself was no surprise.

The night before, after exchanging lengthy incredulous glances (reading each other's minds, Kate would say), James and Ravi had decided to postpone their expedition to the kitchens until further notice– which really meant until they figured out what in the name of Merlin was going on. For a brief moment, James had entertained the possibility that this was just another ploy to shock the two troublemakers completely out of mischief and mayhem, at least for one night, but Rose's story provided corroborating evidence (as tedious as it was to _get_ that evidence out of the horrifyingly "thorough" Rose). So now, James was left in a highly confusing position. He climbed up atop the bench until he could see clear across to the Slytherins, who sneered at him. He ignored them and waved his arms frantically over his head.

"Hey! Mate! Ravi! Over here!"

Beside him, Rose heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I _really_ wish you wouldn't do that."

Next to Rose, Preyanka nodded her head sympathetically. "You know," she said. "I used to be glad I wasn't stuck in the same House as Ravi, but now… it's getting to be a bit of a nuisance."

Meanwhile, Al was tapping James's foot desperately. "James! Professor Vector's looking!" he hissed, nervous.

James would have liked to respond that _everyone_ was watching, but only grinned and waved at the aforementioned professor (causing Al to pale significantly) before clambering down from his perch. Ravi had arrived.

"How about, next time, you come over to _my_ table when you need to talk to me? Or better yet– wait _thirty seconds_ and tell me whatever it is on the way to class." Ravi glanced up at the large clock hovering above the exit. Professor Flitwick had installed it the year before, after a certain (one guess who) fourth year was consistently late to class, citing the unreliable state of his Muggle alarm clock (a gift from his aunt, he insisted) in the magical environment. "Can we at least wait _two_ weeks into term before you get us both detentions?"

"But that would spoil my perfect record!" James gasped, horrified. "Who _are_ you, Ravi?"

The clock began to strike eight.

"What do we have next anyway?" James asked. He had made a paper airplane out of his class schedule on the first day– to thrown at Al, naturally; there was no more noble endeavor– so he never quite knew what to expect in terms of lessons. Ravi, the longsuffering cohort, sighed wearily.

"Just Muggle Studies," he said.

Ravi didn't understand why James's face brightened suddenly as he glanced at the Hufflepuffs filing out of the Hall.

"I have some interesting news, mate," James said with a wicked grin.


	5. Babbling

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Babbling**

Kate waved excitedly at James and Ravi as they entered their Professor's classroom after breakfast. Unfortunately, thanks to the newly-installed clock and the fact that Muggle Studies was held on the first floor of the castle, the two boys had no reason to be late to class.

"Someone's excessively cheerful today," James mumbled, only to find that his friend had abandoned his side to take the empty seat next to his cousin. James found himself annoyed. He had not, after all, agreed yet that Kate would be fully accepted as a member of her circle. Besides, the room was practically empty. Muggle Studies did have a sort of a stigma as a "soft option" elective, as Rose had implied, but even those students who opted to take the course in third and fourth year often dropped later on, to have more time for the really important OWL subjects. After all, no one really needed an OWL in Muggle Studies unless they were aspiring to a career as a Muggle Liason… something James did not find particularly desirable.

James had wanted to drop the class. Ravi had refused the minute James told him that Kate was transferring in. Blast his wandering tongue!

"… so I told him I didn't _care_ if he wrote Mum and Dad about it, because, the truth is, even if I stuck it out another year, I _knew_ I wasn't going to pass the Arithmancy OWLs, so what's the point?" Kate was chattering with Ravi happily, waving a slightly crumpled roll of parchment around as she gestured expressively. Kate was effusive in talking with her hands.

"And so it turns out he did write them after all, but it doesn't matter, because just this morning I got _this_!" She extended the letter to Ravi, positively beaming. James had taken up the desk behind his Ravenclaw friend with the determination to slouch there sullenly the whole hour, possible poking Ravi with a particularly sharp quill every once and a while, just to needle him. But James Potter's saving grace was the ability to shrug off a bout of anger just as quickly as he _got_ angry, so he peered over Ravi's shoulder at the mysterious letter, curiosity getting the better of his indignation.

_Kathryn,_

_Of course your brother is right that, as a fifth year, you should be setting your mind to your future career. Personally, I think that the opportunity cost of a few perhaps painful years of hard work in Arithmancy is worth the payoff of an admirable future career in Healing, which is, after all, what you have insisted you wanted to do from a young age. Ignatius, I am sure, would be perfectly amenable to tutoring you if you need help. There is no reason whatsoever that you throw away two years of work you've already put into the subject simply because the coursework has increased in its level of difficulty– your mother, of course, agrees and would hope to see you continue with the class. We expect you or Ignatius soon with an update and a fully-reasoned decision._

_Dad._

James gaped at his cousin, then Ravi, then Kate again. Ravi looked similarly confused– Kate was beaming as though she had just been given carte blanche to do whatever she liked, but…

"Kate," James said. "I'm going to try to say this as kindly as I can…that was worse than a Howler."

Ravi grimaced. "It was kind of cold, Kate."

Kate looked genuinely bewildered. "What are you talking about? He signed it 'Dad,' see?" She pointed at the small, neat sign-off.

James and Ravi shook their heads.

"Is that supposed to be unusual?"

Kate groaned, exasperated, as though _they_ were the crazy ones. "And look– it's on my mum's stationary."

"And…?"

"Well," Kate said. "Usually, if they're angry, they send the letters on Ministry letterhead."

James slowly dropped his head onto the top of his desk. And all these years, he had complained about _his_ parents.

"And look at the last line!" Kate exclaimed. "It says to write back with a 'fully-reasoned decision!' Don't you understand what the means? As long as I can make a logical case for transferring, they'll let me do it! Oh, Ignatius was _so_ angry when he read this!"

James looked at the letter again, deciding then and there that he needed to write home and thank his parents for not being Uncle Percy. He turned over the sheet of parchment– it was too painful.

"Wait– what's this?"

There was a postscript:

_P.S: Kate! Just had to add– I was never any good at Arithmetic either, and the medical profession strikes me as dreadful. I'm absolutely thrilled you're going to take Muggle Studies! I already wrote Granddad Weasley and Arthur! Of course, regarding everything else, I completely agree with your father. Love, Mum._

Kate smiled at the note– it was hardly legible, but the excitement was clear in the way the pencil had dug into the paper.

"How strange," Kate said softly, amazed. "I was so excited about the main letter I didn't even see it."

James would _never_ understand that family.

His incredulous thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a short, plump, completely disheveled woman wearing four pairs of glasses– one in the convention way, one on a string around her neck, one atop her hat (which was tipping precariously, lethal-looking hatpins flying out and scattering across the room as she rushed in), and one in her shirt pocket.

"Good morning Professor Babbling!" Kate greeted her. The discovery of the highly encouraging postscript had caused a surge in her excessive good cheer.

"Oh! Kathryn, dear! So you are joining us! Wonderful! Oh, how exciting! You know, I was thinking recently– it's been such a long time since we actually had a real muggleborn student in the class. You know, most children with Muggle parents figure they know enough about all those crazy things Muggles do that they don't need to take a class, but the new perspective is what's fascinating! Of course, you're not technically muggleborn, I suppose, with your father in the Ministry– yes, I may forget my lesson plan but for some reason I can keep track of all the Weasley kids! Though, I don't suppose being _in_ the Ministry would necessarily preclude one from being a Muggle. We've had plenty of Muggle get places they're not supposed to get, and the interesting thing about it is how…"

(Bathsheba Babbling was incredibly true to her surname.)

Professor Babbling had taught Ancient Runes for longer than she could remember, but had only taken on Muggle Studies after poor Charity Burbage had been… (how could this be put most delicately?) eaten by a horcrux. Terrible. And then the dreadful Carrows had taken over the class and turned it into more of a propaganda machine than anything else. No wonder no one had wanted the course afterwards! But Bathsheba Babbling was never one to back down from a chance when she could talk to students about the arcane– and truly, besides Ancient Runes, there was nothing in the whole world more foreign than the Muggle _Internet._

"Welcome, my dear Muggle Studies OWL students!" Professor Babbling revealed a practically toothless smile, not quite reflected in the half dozen faced which watched her blankly from the rows of desks (except for dear Kathryn Weasley, of course, who was always so pleasant). Bathsheba Babbling must have thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her, because she promptly swapped the glasses on her nose for a miraculous _fifth_ pair pulled from some nether place inside her blouse. James shuddered.

Unfortunately, the glasses were not the problem. Despite all her high hopes, the third and fourth year students who had wanted an _easy_ course had once again proved themselves unable to appreciate such a find field of study as was her delight to teach. Once again, Professor Babbling found herself looking at a fifth-year class with such a paltry number of students (Six! Were there no more than six children at Hogwarts who cared to continue in the field?) that she could count them all on her right foot. (Bathsheba Babbling had been born with an extra toe on her right foot. It had made her hopeless in mathematics all through her early education.)

Things never seemed to change– muggleborn students had higher ambitions, wanting nothing more than to get _away_ from that part of their life, and children with wizard parents had never been _exposed_ to that part of the world. It was a conundrum Bathsheba Babbling optimistically hoped she could unravel each year, but never quite managed to figure out.

"Yes… welcome!" This second welcome was a little less enthusiastic than the first, but still much warmer than most of the other professors' greetings– Binns, for example, didn't even bother to learn the names of his new classes. Bathsheba found that appalling. She was _nearly_ as old as Death, and _she_ could manage to remember her students' names… most of the time…

"Well, let's go around and introduce ourselves, yes?" she asked. "All right! I'm Professor Babbling– just call me Bathsheba, dears, there are so many 'Professors' around but not many Bathshebas that it'll make it easier to catch my ear. Yes? All right!"

She turned and froze James with her highly magnified eyes.

"Er… I'm James Potter," he said lamely. But Bathsheba kept watching him, so he figured a longer introduction must be in order. He grinned. "Yes, I am _the_ James Potter– James Potter II, esquire, to be more precise. I'm also a Gryffindor quidditch chaser. You might remember me from last year's final game against Ravenclaw, _killing_ the goalposts so that we won _even_ when Ravenclaw what's-his-name got the snitch."

Silence. Ravi frowned. "For the record, our keeper had been _hexed_ earlier that game, and the only reason–"

"No way, Rav– having beaters that don't know how to protect their own keeper does _not_ count as 'hexed,' mate. You're just sore that–"

"Don't you bring that up, James."

"You're just _sore_ that–"

"James, I'm warning you. If you mention what I think you're going to mention, then I will tell everyone what you told _me_ the night before you 'killed' all the goalposts. Remember? About the _flamingos_?"

James quickly stopped talking, mortified. "I'm done. Your turn."

Ravi grinned, but his face fell when he realized that Bathsheba's disconcertingly large eyes were fixed on _him_ now.

"Ravi Singh, Ravenclaw… I'm a prefect?"

"Oh come on mate, that was not interesting at all!" James complained.

"Flamingos."

"Right."

Kate was next, and she introduced herself just as shortly­– Kate Weasley, Hufflepuff, Prefect.

Three mumbling Hufflepuffs who clearly belonged to the "soft option" class of Muggle Studies students followed, each giving Kate the evil eye. She blushed. No doubt they were victims of her and Ignatius's rule-following vigilance. If she had believed it would have made a difference, Kate would have wanted to cry _Look! I transferred out of a difficult class into this! I'm sitting with James Potter! I've turned over a new leaf!_ But the three mumbling Hufflepuffs promptly dozed off after their respective introductions, and any such confession would have been useless.

"Well! That was wonderful– yes? All right!" Bathsheba declared, clapping her gnarled, wrinkled hands together as happily as a child. "Now let's look at my lesson plan for the day… and if I could just read it…" She swapped out her current glasses for a sixth pair which had been hiding somewhere in her disheveled bun. "Aha! Here were are– September the–"

The door swung open suddenly.

"So sorry I'm late! I didn't realize all the Houses met at the same time for this class– my mistake, and I apologize, Professor!"

Bathsheba, unperturbed, looked up at the intruder. He was fairly small boy for a fifth year, with blonde hair and a pale, pointed face which, rather than flushed from what had clearly been a sprint to class, was looking particularly green.

"Just my luck…" the boy muttered.

"What is it, dear? Oh! Let's have your introduction– we just went about the classroom learning each others' names, yes. Name and House, dearie, yes."

The boy swallowed and nodded quickly.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "It's Scorpius Malfoy– Slytherin."


	6. Nobody Cares

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.

**Nobody Cares About Your Father's Legislation**

"How lovely!" Professor Babbling exclaimed. "We've rounded out the houses now– a Gryffindor, a Ravenclaw, four Hufflepuffs, and a Slytherin! Wonderful! Take a seat, dearie, yes, take a seat."

Scorpius didn't even attempt to smile—simply nodded shortly and clutch the strap of his bookbag more tightly. He had really been worried about being late to class? If he had known what was waiting for him (_who_ was waiting for him), Scorpius would have stayed in bed. All week long.

He took a seat, _dearie yes_, but he took a seat as far from James Potter as the limited space in the room allowed. Three dozing students and a slightly overweight girl with curly red hair separated Scorpius Malfoy from his arch-nemesis.

"Well let's begin then!" Professor Babbling said with a clap of her hands. She pulled out a textbook and began to read aloud, as the rest of the students followed along in their own copies. Something about recent Muggle protection legislation, although "recent" was a relative (and rather ambiguous term) coming from a woman as old as Bathsheba Babbling. It could mean anything within the past thirty years, and Scorpius realized that he was not in a state amenable to mental focus or discernment. He wouldn't be able to concentrate. He decided not to try.

Meanwhile, James Potter and Ravi Singh were not as subtle as they thought themselves to be—their surreptitious glances in his direction (not to mention their constant note-passing) were noticeable to everyone except Bathsheba Babbling and that girl in the front row, who was looking at her textbook incredibly intently, at the picture taking up most of page fifty-seven. Babbling was moving on, but the girl kept staring at the page. And still. Scorpius opened his own book.

Four limp figures were hanging, mostly limp but one of them wriggling slightly, in the air above a scene of tents burning. The caption read:

_A Muggle family at the Quidditch World Cup harassed by Death Eaters. E. Filbert, second from right. photo credit: Daily Prophet_

Scorpius snapped the book shut; the girl started out of her own reverie and glanced at him. Fantastic, Scorpius thought. Fantastic that it was on this day, and at this moment, that his grandfather made an appearance in an old picture in his Muggle Studies textbook. Lucius Malfoy was one of the Death Eaters in the picture below, masked and robed but present nonetheless. He didn't need some morbid red-haired Hufflepuff reminding him.

A bell chimed, blissful end to class, and Scorpius was roused from his brooding. He jumped up from his seat, grabbed his books, and darted out the door, leaving Potter and his friends far, far behind.

Lunch was spent in the library.

"Er… excuse me?"

Scorpius snapped his head around so quickly that his neck hurt. Bloody hell, that class had made him jumpy.

The Library, as usual, was filled with harried, frenetic students beating themselves up for procrastinating so long. Scorpius had thought, rather dryly, that the place ought to have been more sedate during the first week of the term, but September always drew ridiculously large quantities of harried, frenetic first years to the Library, most of them complaining about unfair professors. Likewise, May brought harried, frenetic fifth-years complaining about unfair OWL requirements. Scorpius enjoyed spotting patterns, even the bleak ones, and he'd spent a great many meals at the Library during his time at Hogwarts.

Which was why he was surprised to be interrupted– nobody liked to bother a Slytherin sitting alone at a table at the end of a dark, dusty corner of the Library. Someone was breaking the pattern.

"You're Scorpius Malfoy, aren't you? We're in a class together, Muggle Studies, with Professor Bathsheba?"

It was the red-headed Hufflepuff, part of James Potter's retinue, if that morning's class had been any indication.

"What, you're not sure?" he asked.

Her smile had been nervous before, but now she appeared to be in extreme pain. Scorpius had previously determined that Hufflepuffs did not generally appreciate sarcasm.

"I'm sorry," the girl said, genuinely apologetic. "I meant: we _are_ in Professor Bathsheba's class together. My brother says I'm slightly socially phobic, and phrasing statements in the form of questions is a defense mechanism… not that that matters."

Scorpius was the confused one now.

"Who's your brother?"

"Ignatius Weasley," she said. "Oh! I'm Kathryn, Kate really. Well, _officially_ I'm Molly Kathryn but nobody calls me that, not even Iggy. We're not getting along, you know."

"As a matter of fact, I didn't know," Scorpius said dryly. "But that's probably logical. Potters and Malfoys don't get along, do they?"

The Hufflepuff– Kathryn, he meant– frowned and seemed at a loss for words. "Potters…?" she finally asked.

"Sure," said Scorpius. "That's why you're here, isn't it? Something to do with James Potter." He spat the name.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "James can't know I talked to you– we're supposed to be friends now."

"I thought we weren't getting along."

The girl's face suddenly lost most of its tension– her forehead smoothed out and she beamed. "I'm sorry!" she said happily. "Sometimes when I'm nervous I'm incoherent. I meant– I'm _not_ getting along with my brother, so I'm supposed to be friends with James now. Did you think I meant you? Geez, that must have been confusing. I'm awfully sorry. Do you mind… can I sit down?"

Scorpius nodded.

"I'm one of the _other_ Weasleys, see? Not one of the Potter Weasleys. Iggy and I don't have anything against Slytherins. Hufflepuffs are pretty tolerant, you know– I mean, except for Iggy… he doesn't like Gryffindors. Oh! Can you pretend I haven't been calling him 'Iggy'? Because we're supposed to be fighting."

Scorpius came to realize that all patterns were off.

"What in the name of Merlin are you talking about?"

The girl– Kathryn, he meant– looked surprised, as though her utterly convoluted train of thought was totally obvious.

"The Muggle Protection Act, of course," she said simply. "It was my father's bill at the Ministry. I saw you reading some of the text of it in class. See? Here."

She had her Muggle Studies textbook under an arm, and now opened it up to page fifty-seven, which he _had_, in truth, been staring at. What Scorpius hadn't realized was what was written beneath the photograph:

_The Muggle Protection Act: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Modern Anti-Muggle Security Practices in Regard to the Negative Impact on Muggle Communities_

_Senior Legislative Sponsor:_ _Percy Ignatius Weasley, Department of International Magical Cooperation_

_Presented to the Wizengammot by P. Weasley (DIMC) and H. Granger (DMLE), with additional testimony from: E. and S. Filbert_

"Look," Scorpius said, somehow exhausted by the conversation. "I wasn't examining the text– I wasn't even paying attention. No one was. No one, Kathryn Weasley, cares about your father's legislation."

Somehow, the girl didn't seem to take the statement as Scorpius had intended– as a dismissal.

"Oh I know," she said with a shrug. "But it's my mother's legislation too, and I don't see the name Audrey Stevens _anywhere_."


	7. The Unfortunate Case of Herbert Chorley

A/N: From this point on, things might get a tad confusing if you haven't yet read "A Muggle in Magical Britain," which I rather selfishly suggest you do… :)

Disclaimer: No Rights Reserved

**The Unfortunate Case of Mr. Herbert Chorley**

"Now don't be nervous," Percy said, trying to be comforting. It did not help that Percy Weasley himself– wizard, legislator, Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation– was shaking slightly and had turned bright red. Edie was not comforted. For her part, she turned pale, and slightly green.

Edie Filbert was not helped by the thought that she was a survivor of the Battle of Hogwarts, and had faced much worse in the past– the Cruciatus Curse, for one thing: being tortured by a Death Eater hadn't been a terribly pleasant experience, after all. Memory of the (albeit slightly sardonically) encouraging words from the Sorting Hat did not help either; nor did even the presence of Percy Weasley beside her, holding her shoulder protectively (and a little too tightly, to tell the truth). And the feel of the cold, metallic badge with the words LEGISLATIVE AIDE on her blouse _definitely_ didn't help.

Because even though she had fought at Hogwarts, and visited Diagon Alley, and been treated at St. Mungo's, and attended a Quidditch World Cup– even so– Edie Filbert was a Muggle, and as she and Percy stepped into the fireplace at the Burrow, Edie experienced the unnerving worry that most witches and wizards wouldn't be nearly so accepting of her non-magical status as the Weasleys were.

"Ministry of Magic!" Percy declared, releasing a handful of Floo Powder, and instantly the two were engulfed by emerald-green flames. Edie clenched her teeth. There was a time when this sort of thing had shocked and awed and amazed her. Now it just made her head pound.

The first thing Edie saw when she opened her eyes was the gold statue in the great foyer of the Ministry, four small figures standing proudly on a high pedestal: one holding a sword, one a cup, one a locket, and one a diary. Well, mostly proudly– occasionally the one with the locket slouched a little, until the female figure with the cup jabbed him in the side with her wand and he straightened up. Despite her queasiness, Edie smiled a little, because she'd met Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger in real life, and the behavior of their statues was surprisingly true to reality.

"Why good morning Percy!" a sickeningly sweet voice said from behind the two. Edie whirled around. The woman laughed in a high-pitched, tinkling sort of way, and Edie felt surprised that such a sound could possibly come from such a squat, toad-like witch. But then, she _was_ a witch, so maybe it was some sort of charm. The woman smiled at Edie's evident wariness: "Now there's no need to be jumpy, my dear. Nobody's going to harm you here– this is the Ministry!"

Edie nodded slowly.

"Good morning Dolores," Percy said, sounding slightly surprised himself. "I thought this was your day off?"

"Oh, day off, shmay off! You didn't really think I would miss the chance to meet the redoubtable Miss Filbert, did you? Don't be silly, Percy! I've already met her sister, as you know."

Edie felt a sudden stab of something like horror. _This_ was the woman who– thinking the younger sister was Edie herself– had wiped poor Sharon's memory, giving the girl years of incomprehensible nightmares. No, the cheerful tinkling tone of voice was _not_ a charm– it was just human subterfuge, false charm, same as any Muggle woman might use, because Dolores So-and-So could not _possibly_ be pleased to meet the girl who was living proof of her own incompetence.

"Pleased to meet you," Edie lied quietly, shaking the woman's plump hand with her own clammy one. Dolores smiled.

"I expect we'll be seeing each other soon," she replied. And to Percy: "Ta-ta!"

When she had gone, Percy turned to Edie, grimacing. "I'm sorry about that," he said tersely. "I don't know how she found out– we've been trying to keep a tight lid on the Act, but–"

"It was bound to happen eventually," Edie said. "It's not your fault."

Percy frowned, as though wondering why _she_ was suddenly the calm one, the one doing the comforting instead of being comforted.

"413, right?" she asked, wanting to get out of the lobby and thus the view of other unknown witches and wizards.

"Come on."

In the lift to Percy's office on the fourth floor, Edie was pleased to see that the swirling purple memos above her head did not inspire either fear or sickness. The horrible woman might be harboring malice toward her, Edie mused, but she'd been right about one thing: nobody was going to harm her at the Ministry. Muggle haters existed, of course, and even in the government, but there was a new minister and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was dead and the Death Eaters had less and less purchase than ever. The Law was on her side, and the quiet support for the new Muggle Protection Act indicated that the Ministry was on her side too. Nobody was going to hurt her. Maybe people like Dolores Toad _wanted_ to… but they wouldn't. After all, who would openly support Muggle-baiting so close after the Second War was won in the name of rights?

By the time she and Percy arrived at his office and stepped inside, Edie was feeling positively cheerful.

The middle-aged man vomiting in Percy's wastepaper basket quickly wiped the smile off her face.

Percy cleared his throat.

The man turned around and looked at the two through red, bleary eyes, as though he'd been crying. Edie gasped.

"I know you!" she said. "You're the Prime Minister's junior minister! You went cra– I mean, you retired." Edie flushed.

The man, she realized, wasn't so old as she'd first suspected– his hair was gray but still thick, and his hairline showed no sign of receding. His eyes were red and ringed with dark circles, but there were no wrinkles on his face. He was like a man prematurely aged by a great shock– and Edie didn't have to think too hard to guess what sort of shock that was.

"Herbert Ch-Chorley," he said, extending a hand (after wiping it half-heartedly on his wrinkled slacks). Percy winced, but Edie shook the hand gamely. She could sympathize.

"I– I'm not sure where…" the man looked around. "This isn't my bedroom. Not my bedroom. Not. Not."

"Mr. Chorley is currently in the residential ward at St. Mungo's," Percy said solemnly. "He has sustained some permanent mental damage from the imposition of a crudely-performed Imperius Curse a couple years ago."

Edie shuddered, and a fleeting thought flitted across her consciousness– _this could be you._ But she wasn't disgusted or afraid, only supremely empathetic, so Edie flashed Herbert Chorley her warmest smile. He vomited in the wastebasket again.

"Lately he also appears to experience near-constant nausea," Percy added, looking regretfully about his spotless office.

"But I'm not mentally ill!" Chorley asserted angrily, wiping a bit of spittle from the corner of his mouth with a vicious swipe of his hand. "Not. Not."

He looked intently at Edie.

"You're like me. Not a witch not not not a witch. I can tell. Do they keep you locked up too? They won't let me go home. I'm not crazy. They won't let me go home. Won't. Won't."

His voice had become so plaintive by this point that Edie didn't quite know how to respond.

"Why don't we take a seat?" she suggested kindly, as Percy wearily slumped into his desk chair. She and Chorley sat as well, facing him across the tabletop. Edie raised an eyebrow at Percy.

"We _don't_ keep him locked up," he insisted, glancing at Chorley, who was once more driving the porcelain bus, so to speak. "He's in what's called 'protective custody.' But he's right that he's not exactly mentally ill– there is _some_ permanent damage, to be certain, but it's relatively minor compared to the state he was in when he entered St. Mungo's. He was quacking like a duck. Now, he simply has some trouble with language, fluctuating physical symptoms such as this nausea, and… acute paranoia."

Edie sighed. 'Protective custody' seemed a characteristically Percy-esque semantic trick. "If he's mostly all right, then," she argued, "why can't you just let him go home? He has a family, doesn't he?"

Chorley looked up at this. "Wife had a baby last year. Named him after me. They told me. But I haven't seen it haven't haven't."

"That's horrible!" Edie exclaimed. She looked at Percy desperately. "You said he's not really that ill– why can't he go home?"

"He knows about everything!" Percy pleaded, as though that was an argument which would register with Edie Filbert (it wasn't). "And we can't wipe his memory, because it's likely to cause even more instability."

Edie froze. "_I_ know about everything," she whispered. "Are you going to put _me_ in… in… 'protective custody' too?"

Herbert Chorley nodded conspiratorially.

But Percy only sighed, seemingly exasperated, and reached across the desk to hold Edie's hand. She didn't pull away, but she didn't exactly squeeze back either.

"No one is going to wipe your memory as long as I have anything to do with it," Percy said seriously. "I promise you: you're safe. Mr. Chorley is an unfortunate case– if an Obliviator tried even the weakest memory charm, he'd only cause more damage. Debilitating damage. There'd be no way for Chorley to function in the world, as he can now."

"But he _doesn't_," Edie said, shaking her head. "He's trapped at St. Mungo's. He isn't _in _the world."

Percy ran a hand through his hair– the tell-tale sign that he was tense and highly displeased by the direction of the conversation.

"What do you suggest we do, Edie?" Percy asked. "When we can't keep him here, and we can't send him back. And don't say we send him back with all this knowledge of the magical world– you know that's against Ministry policy."

"Does that mean that after the Muggle Protection Act is passed, either I'll have to be locked up too, or lose my memory _again_?" she asked once more, trying to remain calm but feeling the intrusion of frightening tendrils of doubt into her confidence in Percy's honesty.

"Don't be ridiculous," Percy said. And that was that.

"Now Mr. Chorley will be cited as a case study in the abstract of the Act I'll be presenting to the Wizengamot next month. His experiences, as you doubtless recognize, parallel your own encounters with Death Eaters during the Second War and previously. Furthermore, his background indicates…"

Percy droned on, and Herbert Chorley emptied the contents of his stomach once more into the wastebasket.

And as hard as Edie tried, the inklings of doubt wouldn't let her concentrate. Their cases _were_ similar, hers and Chorley's. So why did the Ministry treat them so differently? Because the inklings of an answer at the edge of her thoughts terrified her, Edie took Percy's advice: Don't be ridiculous. Stop asking questions.

Unfortunately, not asking questions was _not_ Edie Filbert's strong suit.


	8. Not a Malfoy, Not a Weasley

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**Not a Malfoy, Not a Weasley**

Kate was so absurdly pleased with herself that she couldn't stop grinning, even though it was only nine o'clock and she still had three more hours of Prefect patrol duty with Will MacMillan (a prospect which, on any other day, would have plunged her into a laconic sort of sullenness interspersed with deep sighs). Tonight she was positively cheerful.

"What's so funny, Kathryn?" Will would ask every fifteen minutes or so, when Kate's grins would morph into irrepressible giggling. She'd shake her head, mumble "nothing!" and continue swinging her arms happily as the two Hufflepuffs marched up and down the corridors looking– Will conscientiously, Kate carelessly– for truants.

"Really, Kathryn," Will chastised her, fed up after the fifth time this had happened. "You're a Prefect– and it's not even that, you're a fifth-year! This is hardly appropriate behavior."

Kate snapped her mouth shut and mumbled "You're right Will, of course," but somehow the apology didn't have the usual sycophantic fervor she paid her brother. It must be, Will determined, a matter of her newly formed "friendship" with James Potter. He decided to set her straight.

"You know," Will began, his tone indicating very clearly that this was about to be a long and tedious sermon on the proper conduct and deportment of a Hogwarts prefect. It was nothing she hadn't heard before– the exact words and phrases, in fact, were lifted directly from the verbal handbook of Ignatius Weasley– but Will MacMillan, as a decent student of average ability and an exceptional work ethic, learned best by constant repletion. He assumed that Kate did too. "It seems to me that when a particular individual is entrusted with a position of authority, and hence with a certain prestige or status in the eyes of his _or her_ peers, it's important– nay, absolutely vital– that said individual comport him _or her_ self in a manner which not only equals but exceeds the level of propriety expected of–"

"I'm sorry," Kate interrupted abruptly. "Would you mind starting over? Your sentence structure became a little to complicated for me to follow at the end. Something about the 'nay,' I think."

Will squinted at Kathryn suspiciously. Kate wasn't a brilliant girl, by any means– not like her cousin Rose anyway– but if she was good at anything, it was semantics. Didn't she and Ignatius needle each other with the finer points of grammar and syntax? Hadn't that been part of their "fight" the other day?

In any case– all that meant was that Kate's comment was intended to be taken sarcastically, and _that_ was something quite out of character. He found himself– shockingly– at a loss for words.

"Sshhh!" Kate whispered, stepping closer to him and speaking so low she was just barely audible. "The clocks are about to chime eleven– get ready to play along."

Will could not have been more confused. "Play along with _what?_" he hissed.

"I'm going to stage an argument and storm off," she continued quietly. "If Ignatius asks later, tell him I went to the Prefects' bathroom to take a shower. Of course, that's not where I'm going."

"You're sneaking off with James and Ravi, aren't you?"

Kate grinned, but it didn't strike Will as quite right, for a reason he couldn't place. Will MacMillan was vigilant, but that didn't mean he was perceptive.

"But then…" he spluttered. "What do you mean _if Ignatius asks_? Ignatius _is_ the one orchestrating all this, isn't he? You're planning it with him– you're supposed to find out how Potter gets around the castle without ever getting caught!"

"_Quiet,_" Kate breathed. "They can't know you know I'm going with them– they can't know I'm still with _you_ at all."

Around the castle, clocks began to chime and Kate began to shout angrily.

"For the last time, Will– I will _not_ go to Hogsmeade with you next month! Not next month, and not the month after that, and not the month after that! Do you think what I said to Ignatius doesn't hold for his puppet _too_? Merlin, I wish I wasn't a Hufflepuff!"

Kate turned sharply on her heel and darted off down the corridor, leaving Will no more enlightened and rather more upset than even before. The fight was staged, she said, but Kate had sounded like she meant every word.

He was pondering whether or not he really _could_ ask her to go to Hogsmeade with him on the next vacation and not receive a tongue lashing like that (fake?) one when, out of the corner of his eye, Will saw a tapestry move some yards away to the left. A door opened up behind and Kate went through, followed not by a tall boy with untidy black hair, but a slight one with blonde hair and a pale, pointed face.

***

Scorpius stared.

"Forgive me," he said dryly. "But am I supposed to understand _any_ of what you just said?"

Kate-the-Hufflepuff seemed impervious to snide remarks and continued, infuriatingly, to smile pleasantly.

"My mum," Kate repeated. "She's a Muggle, and she's supposed to have worked with my father on the Muggle Protection Act in our textbook, but it doesn't mention her _anywhere_. I'd like to find out what exactly's going on, but this revelation came at _precisely_ the wrong time. I can't ask Iggy for help because I can't be seen talking to him, and I can't ask Will because he's so ridiculously self-important. I can't ask James because I'm on a secret mission to get information out of him, and I can't ask Ravi because even if he _wanted_ to keep a secret from James, he couldn't. He's a really bad liar." She paused, thoughtful. "Rose would probably help me– she liked the Library… but I get the feeling she thinks she's better than me. So I'm asking you."

Scorpius wasn't sure he could believe what he was hearing.

"To help you find out why some low-level Ministry clerk forgot to put your mother's name on some paperwork twenty years ago?"

"Well…" Kate said. "It was more like eighteen, but that's all right. And besides, I don't think that's _it_."

"What do you mean 'it'?"

"I mean that's not what happened."

"So what do you think _did_ happen?"

Kate shrugged. "How should I know? It's not like I have a Pensieve or anything."

"But you think I do?" Scorpius asked scathingly.

"Of course not!" Kate replied. "I don't know anyone who has powerful magical objects like that– Iggy thinks James has _something_ strongly enchanted like that (it's what I'm supposed to be finding out, see), but we don't know what. And I'm asking you because besides Rose and Iggy, you're probably the smartest person I know."

Scorpius felt a sudden stab of embarrassment– he hadn't even known her name an hour before.

"Er… thank you," he said lamely.

Kate beamed. "Iggy and I were real surprised when you weren't made a Prefect this year–you're always the best in our year. It wasn't fair."

Against his better judgment, Scorpius found himself nodding and saying:

"I'm glad somebody says so. I think it's because–" He cut himself off, vaguely angry with himself for betraying his characteristic taciturn silence on personal _feelings._

"Because you're a… you know, a Malfoy?"

Scorpius paused, frowned. It was nice– though painful to admit to himself– to have a lunch hour with some human company (however strange and incoherent that company was). And she _wasn't_ really Potter's friend after all, as it turned out– she was a spy for her brother, with seemingly genuine animosity for James and his crowd. She knew what it was like to be stained by a name– Weasley was a good name, true, but she and her brother were Hufflepuffs and so, in the eyes of many, couldn't live up to it. She was an outsider too.

All of this was enough to decide Scorpius in favor of saying what he's wanted desperately to tell _someone_ (anyone!) since the start of term– if only for the sake of human sympathy.

"No," he said. "It's not because I'm a Malfoy. It's because I'm _not_ a Malfoy, not enough of one anyway, or not the right kind."

Kate nodded immediately, excitedly– she knew exactly what he meant.

"A Prefect needs to be someone his peers respect, at least those within his own House. But as you can see–" He gestured wryly to his dusty corner table. "I don't have an extraordinarily large group of friends. Merlin's beard, I'm taking OWL _Muggle Studies_."

Kate sighed.

"I know what you mean. I'm not the right kind of Weasley either. I should be in Arithmancy– that was the basis for the fake fight, you know, between me and Iggy, but I think he really _does_ agree with Rose and everyone… that it's a soft option. And even so, just pretending to be friends with James and Ravi has almost been a welcome–" She suddenly brightened. "Say, you don't like James Potter, do you?"

Scorpius scowled.

"I _despise_ James Potter."

"Then I bet you and Iggy will get along!" Kate declared. "It won't help you with the Slytherins for sure, but we Hufflepuffs wouldn't care that you're a Malfoy, or not a Malfoy, or not the right kind. And I'd rather not have to spend all my time with _Will MacMillan._"

Scorpius grinned.

"I'm not quite sure I want to join Ignatius Weasley's Junior Ministry just yet, and besides, you said that you're supposed to be in a fight with your brother– you can't just bring in new recruits," he said, "But you're correct in saying that I _am_ the most talented student you know, so–"

"Well, you or Rose anyway," Kate interjected.

Scorpius smiled more broadly. "No. Me. And because you were so astute in recognizing that fact– which you do recognize, of course– I will help you figure out what exactly went wrong with the Muggle Protection Act all those years ago, with neither Potter nor your brother knowing what we're doing."

"Really?" Kate asked.

"You have my word as a Malfoy."

Kate laughed.

"Meet me behind the tapestry of Barnabas the Brigand tonight at eleven, when you're on prefect duty. We'll make up some story for MacMillan– that you're acting in your double agent capacity with Potter," Scorpius said. He added: "But you have to promise me something too– when you _do_ figure out how Potter's sneaking around with impunity, you'll let me be in the room when Ignatius lets him know he's caught."

"You have my word too," Kate said, mock-solemnly, as the lunch period ended and they shook hands. "My word as a Weasley."


	9. Protective Custody

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**Protective Custody**

The dinner was destined to devolve into a complete disaster.

Sharon knew the basics of Edie's strange history, and kept her eyes warily glued on Percy's hands the entire evening– as she helped herself to another serving of peas, and spilled soup onto the tablecloth, and dribbled water down her blouse. Edie, too far across the table to jab her in the side, stretched her leg out perilously in an attempt to crush her sister's foot under the table. She only succeeded in dislodging the cat, who ran screeching from the room. Sharon jumped and overturned the gravy onto Percy, to whom she was passing the bowl. It might not have been an accident.

To her credit Edie tried very hard to defuse the situation, but Percy was not the most social or extroverted of individuals, and so she found herself having a number of long, uncomfortable, one-sided conversations.

Sharon found this quite to her liking.

It wasn't that she was bitter about her own less-than-pleasant experience with the wizarding world (although that may have been justified, under the circumstances), and it wasn't that she wanted revenge on Edie for being so ridiculously stubborn (which might have been justified too)– she just didn't trust this Percy Weasley to keep her sister safe. And _that_, considering their history, was_ completely_ justified.

It hadn't been difficult to convince their parents that Edie's new friend from London was a bad influence either. Wasn't it strange, Sharon suggested (with seemingly innocent motives), that this Percy had his own flat in the city while Edie stayed in a room in his _parents'_ house? Why couldn't Edie stay at home, if she was going to be so close to their own hometown of Ottery St. Catchpole? And if they _were _so close, why did the Filberts hardly ever see their daughter? Wasn't it peculiar that the Weasleys didn't have a telephone, or a computer, and that Edie was so strangely short in her letters (letters!) sent from barely five miles away?

Essentially, while Edie was working to create a good impression at the Ministry, Sharon was doing everything in her power to give Percy a bad name. By the time Edie suggested they have a nice family dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Filbert were convinced that Edie's fiancé was megalomaniac, leading Edie down the path to life in some frightening anti-industrial religious cult. Needless to say, they didn't give him much more than dirty looks all night long.

It didn't help that he couldn't describe in detail what exactly he did in his government work.

After dinner, and a painfully strained dessert, Edie and Percy set out to "walk" back to the Burrow (not that they called it the Burrow in front of the Filberts– Sharon would undoubtedly have found a way to twist that information too).

"Well," Edie said after an uncomfortable moment. "I think that went rather well."

Percy immediately began to choke on his own incredulity.

"I guess you're right," she recanted with a weary sigh. "You know, maybe I should stay here tonight– I think it might reassure them, prove Sharon wrong, you know? If you'll tell Molly I won't be in today, I'll walk over in the morning and Floo to the Ministry to meet you for–"

Percy cut her off. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Edie frowned. "All right, but _I_ think I know my family. And they are _not_ going to like it if I keep disappearing all the time."

Percy paused a moment and seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "I would feel much more secure…" he said slowly, "if you were at the Burrow tonight. I think… you would be more secure as well."

"Secure?" Edie asked, confused. Then she brightened, and laughed. "Percy– the war is over! You don't need to worry about me anymore!"

It was exactly the feeling she had re-captured after meeting Dolores Toad (Umbridge, Percy had informed her, Umbridge) at the Ministry that morning.

"There aren't any Death Eaters lurking around corners waiting to _Crucio_ me, Percy," she said with a smile. "Please, don't worry."

"Not exactly, no…" Percy agreed warily.

"Then what's the problem?" Edie took a few skipping steps back up the driveway of her parents' house. "I'll meet you at the Ministry at 10, all right? Good night Percy."

If Edie had not turned around, she would have seen a strange progression of expression flicker across Percy Weasley's face: uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and sudden determination. He ran his hand through his red hair.

"Edie!"

She turned around.

"I know you think I'm being absurdly protective," he said stiffly. "But I would _very much prefer_ that you return to the Burrow, now."

Edie froze. "Protective…" she said quietly.

"Of course!" Percy said, with relief. "So please, let's go. It's chilly and–"

"Protective custody," she said, tone of voice far more chilly than the weather could ever have been. "It's not It's not _you_ who's worried about _me_. It's the Ministry worried about their International Statute of Secrecy."

"No!" Percy insisted. "That isn't true at all."

"Fine. Just tell me– when I turn around now and walk into the house, what are you going to do?"

Percy reddened perceptibly, even in the limited illumination of the street lamps, but the stolid determination still held. "I very much hope that you will not put yourself in the position of finding out."

For a moment, Edie thought she _would_ find out, turn around and dare him to hex her from behind. He wouldn't, of course– partially out of respect for her and partially out of respect for Ministry regulations which required a warrant for the detainment of Muggles in violation of the International Statute of Secrecy. Of course, if he wiped her memory _first_, he could detain her immediately… that was a rather unsettling loophole Edie had discovered during the last few weeks of intense Muggle-Ministry relations research. Time was when Edie would never imagine Percy doing such an unscrupulous thing, but now… her confidence was shaken.

And Edie was so angry that she was shaking too, but she realized that she couldn't escape the Ministry– not again, not even if she had a day's head start while Percy applied for his warrant. One thing was certain: whether now or later, if she _didn't_ comply, she'd lose her memory, part of her identity! It was unbearable to be so patronized, so uncertain of her status, but at least the war was over and the Muggle Protection Act was in the works. It would prevent this arbitrary use of magic against non-magical people– Edie sincerely believed that. And to get it passed, in a Ministry where witches and wizards (even without malice or ill intentions) underestimated Muggles as a matter of fact, Percy needed the living example of ingenuity that was Edie Filbert. But once that duty was fulfilled, she thought bitterly, once she had the same rights under magical law as she did as a British citizen, Edie Filbert and Percy Weasley were parting ways. Maybe Sharon was right– Edie would not be any sort of prisoner.

Silently, she started down the street out of Ottery, the path to the Burrow. It was to Percy's credit that he didn't suggest Side-Along Apparition– Edie would rather walk five miles in gelid silence than shorten the trip by holding Percy's hand for so much as the five seconds necessary to perform the charm.

***

"Percy Ignatius Weasley and Audrey Stevens," Kate recited, looking over Scorpius's shoulder at the massive tome of Ministry statutes the Hogwarts Library contained in one of it's most desolate, rarely-visited sections. She grinned; daring Gryffindors like James Potter snuck out of their dormitory at night to find books in the Restricted Section… only the daughter of Percy Weasley snuck out to research legislation.

"I _know_," Scorpius whispered. "Now stop hovering and let me look. _Lumos_."

The tip of his wand glowed and illuminated the page of the book. He ran his finger down the contents of the Muggle Protection Act's full text:

_File 47896-a: guidelines for the Obliviation of memories in Muggles age 10 and below_

_File 47896-b: guidelines for the Obliviation of memories in Muggles above age 10_

_File 47896-b2: restrictions on usage of memory charms when the said Muggle is determined to have prior mental instability_

_File 47896-b3: restrictions on usage of memory charms when the said Muggle is undergoing orthodontic work_

"Bloody Baron," Scorpius muttered. "Is _this_ the kind of work your parents do? Who would _ever_ want to work for the Ministry?"

Kate shrugged, thinking of Ignatius. "Crazy people."

"Here!" Scorpius said after a few more minutes of tedious search. "'_File 48223-g: testimony of Percy Ignatius Weasley and Muggles Edith and Sharon Filbert on anti-Muggle security measures during the Second War_.' Does that sound right?"

"That's my father– I don't know who the others are," Kate said. "Open it up."

Scorpius found the correct page and bent over the book with Kate; the testimony mentioned in the Table of Content seemed to be the transcript of some sort of hearing before the Wizengamot, involving a Muggle woman who was tortured by Death Eaters at both a Quidditch World Cup and the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Edie Filbert?" Kate said to herself, confused. "But why didn't Mum and Dad ever mention _her_? A Muggle fighting in the… it says here she impersonated a Hogwarts Ravenclaw, successfully located and used a Portkey… Flooed herself into Albus Dumbledore's office _after_ her memory had been wiped! How is this even…?

Scorpius sounded impressed: "Bloody _Baron_," he repeated, the favorite curse of Slytherin House.

He turned the page. "Kate? What did you say your mother's name is?"

"Audrey Stevens," she answered promptly.

"Er… are you sure?" Scorpius pointed to a photograph in the bottom right of the page– in the picture, a considerably younger Percy Weasley stood outside the main Ministry building, shoo-ing away reporters from a young woman standing slightly behind, covering her face with her hands. Kate also recognized her Aunt Hermione, looking similarly harassed and doing her best to shield the hiding girl.

_Department of International Magical Cooperation Head P. Weasley and Magical Law Enforcement Junior Fellow H. Granger exit initial congregation of the Wizengamot with Weasley's fiancé, Muggle E. Filbert._

"Bloody _Baron_," Kate moaned.


	10. Smarts

A/N: Sorry for the delay! And Merry Christmas from Edie and Percy... who are a little unpleasant right now. Bah Humbug.

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**Smarts**

Arthur Weasley liked Muggle things, just like his namesake. He was, however– quite _unlike_ his grandfather– highly knowledgeable about and adept in their usage. He could successfully navigate the Internet, build a rudimentary crystal set radio (to the delight of his younger cousins), and even attempt to explain (to the delight of the first Arthur Weasley) how airplanes stayed up. This would all have been perfectly natural if Arthur was a Muggle, or endearingly eccentric if he was a wizard, but Arthur was neither. Arthur Weasley was a Squib.

Having had a Muggle education, Arthur studied science in school– particularly interesting to him was biology and, more specifically, genetics. If magical ability was a gene, he mused during the long lectures at Eton, he could represent the inheritance of magical power with the conventional Punnett Square, the tool used to predict the outcome of cross-breeding experiments. (He might have disdained his older brother, but if they shared anything in common, it was reverence for logic.)

Like this:

_Represent magical ability with __**M**_, he scribbled in a notebook. _Lack of magical ability will be __**m**__, lower-case. We will assume the presence of magical ability to be a dominant gene, since Squibs are even rarer than Muggleborn witches and wizards._

_Mum is a Muggle, and so much have the completely recessive gene: __**mm**_

_Dad is either __**MM **__or __**Mm**__._

_If __**Mm**__, then possible offspring will look like this (statistically):_

_**3/4 Mm**_

_**1/4 mm**_

_If __**MM**__, then:_

_**All Mm**_

This was a gross simplification, of course, but Arthur liked the clarity of his theory. Of course, beyond this point things became a little murkier.

Magical ability, he knew, was not equal across the board– even among witches and wizards. It was like any ability– intelligence, for example. His father, Percy, was extraordinarily intelligent– magical ability aside. His mother Audrey was bright as well, as was Ignatius. Kate, bless her heart, was on the ground floor of the mind, so to speak. And Arthur was in the stratosphere.

It annoyed him that the fact that he scored in the ninety-ninth percentile of IQ tests gave him no credibility in the magical world, the world he was born into. Rose Weasley was probably genius-level too, but what was more significant was that she was a brilliant witch. Arthur was a Squib. He was worse than a Muggle, who simply had _no_ magical ability whatsoever– he was defective.

Because Squibs and Muggles were _not_ equivalent, Arthur realized: it was not simply a matter of cultural difference. Squibs did have magical ability, but at such a low level that it wasn't even efficacious enough to perform the most basic first-year charms (and Arthur had tried).

It made the boy think that Squibs didn't have the recessive gene, **mm**, but the mixture– **Mm**. In his theory, after all, "M" meant magical ability, not magical _power_.

Magical power was a different thing altogether, which had little to do with genetics or the bigoted perversion of wizarding genetics: blood status. Magical _power_ seemed to defy expectation.

Which was how Arthur, son of a pureblood Weasley (and a Muggle) was a Squib and not a Muggle– he had the barest flicker of magical ability without any magical power.

It was worse than having none.

But he had an assignment for creative writing, and he knew that if he continued to think about this dreary topic he'd end up turning in some dreadful, self-indulgently melancholy piece on the vicissitudes of fortune and family. Good Lord, he didn't want to be that person. He decided to write a sequel to the short story he'd submitted the previous term– a dystopian fiction sort of story, in which a young woman accidentally discovers that the world she _thinks_ she's living in is only a fragment of reality, that she and everyone she knows are being kept in the dark. And when she tries to follow up on this knowledge, she's threatened with loss of her memory (because the ruling class possesses extraordinarily advanced technology, naturally). In Arthur's version, her mind is wiped and she's none the wiser.

Arthur got the highest grade in the class, for his "tragic" ending.

"But it isn't tragic," he had insisted. "It's the best thing for the character– why would she _want_ to live in a world that she can never fully participate in? Better that she doesn't know it exists."

But Arthur, growing increasingly impatient with himself for brooding, decided to see if he couldn't make his protagonist an integrated whole and just be done with it.

It seemed kind of sappy to him, on a peripheral level, and far less efficacious than simply discussing the issue with the real-life model for the fictional character– but even if Arthur was intelligent, he was a thirteen-year-old boy, and he didn't want a heart-to-heart with his mother.

"What?" he called irritably– someone was knocking on his door, lightly, as though not wanting to disturb him. _If you don't want to disturb me_, Arthur thought viciously, _don't knock at all._

Tap-TAP. Tap-tap-TAP.

Arthur swiveled around in the chair at his desk. The sound wasn't a tapping at his chamber door, as Poe might say– it was at his window, and Arthur couldn't believe he had ever mistaken the tell-tale sound of an owl's beak on glass for the knock of one of his roommates.

"News from the Castle?" Arthur asked as he let in the bird and unrolled a small slip of parchment from around its leg, only slightly bitterly. Truth was, he was more curious than annoyed to receive a letter from the magical world– his father had strictly insisted that all post to Arthur be done the Muggle way, since he was, after all, at a Muggle school. Someone was in a hurry.

_Arthur!_ the letter began. _It's me, Kate. Well, I guess you can figure that out by my handwriting_– Arthur smiled slightly; he liked his sister– _Anyway, I have a mystery to solve and I need your help. I hate to bother you because I know you're busy and don't like getting tied up in wizarding things, but I can't ask anyone else. One, because I'm caught up in a web of secrets, lies, and double agency at the moment; and Two, because it's rather sensitive information about our family that I don't want too many people to know until we know for sure what's going on. I mean, Scorpius Malfoy already knows but that's because we snuck into the Library to look at old legislative documents when I was supposed to be sneaking into the kitchens with James. Get back to me soon! Love, Kate._

Arthur laughed aloud. He did like his sister– it was rather a shame she was so under their older brother's thumb all the time. But then, if she wasn't asking _him_ for advice, then maybe they weren't so close as usual. She was sneaking around Hogwarts with someone named "Scorpius"? When she was _supposed_ to be doing just the same with _James Potter_? Something strange was going on in Scotland that Arthur couldn't quite untangle from his sister's bizarre note. But he knew one thing at least, and it seemed to be the one that baffled Kate the most. He jotted down a quick note and tied it on the owl's leg. The bird hooted and pecked at Arthur's wrist.

"I'm a Squib," he said, incredulous. "Do you really think I just carry spare sickles around in my pockets? Consider this a collect call."

The bird skewered Arthur with a baleful glare and took off, bearing his hastily-written response:

_Well of course they're not who they say they are. Three Broomsticks, Sat._

***

Edie saw the doorknob begin to turn and, hurriedly, picked up the book on her nightstand and began to read. Pretended to read—the words blurred and swam on the page in front of her, as she unfocused her eyes and practiced in her head, one more time, exactly what she would say to Percy when he opened the door. She composed her face into an anxious expression (it was about what she was feeling, anyway) and prepared to lie like her life depended on it.

She had some excellent prior experience.

"Edie?" Percy looked confused. It _was_ his flat after all—his flat that she'd never visited before, let alone let herself in. As Percy Weasley's legislative aide, she visited his office; as Percy Weasley's fiancé, they ate dinner together at Diagon Alley, or at the Burrow, or at some inconspicuous Muggle restaurant; as Percy Weasley's charge under 'protective custody," she lived in a spare room in the Burrow. His flat was uncharted territory.

"Percy," she said hastily, sounding nervous, looking like she half-regretted coming after all, surprising him like this when he thought she was angry at him. Maybe he thought she'd come to trash his little apartment, or throw something at him—maybe he had a sudden flashback to getting on Ginny's bad side and getting a brutal Bat Bogey Hex to the face. Edie was a Muggle, of course, but a frying pan to the face wouldn't be particularly pleasant either.

But Edie's nervousness didn't betray any anger, and she'd been reading a particularly non-threatening book: _Is It A Saint's Name?_ the title asked. Little pink and blue angels posed, stationary, on the cover. A book of baby names.

Oh, he looked confused all right.

"Percy…" Edie said, a little slower, just as nervous. She twisted her hands in front of her. "Look, Percy, I just wanted to tell you…"

It seemed to Edie that he could probably see right through her, probably guess exactly what she was doing and hate her for it. He'd get all pompous suddenly, patronizing, and never trust her again. Maybe she'd crossed that line already, after her outburst on the Filbertses' driveway. But she had to try, and chances were Percy _didn't_ see through Edie's duplicitous little plan at all—as grossly obvious as her more paranoid introspection considered it. Experience had made her paranoid.

It also made her an excellent actress.

"I'm sorry," she finished quietly. She looked at her feet; she looked back up at his face. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I was stupid—I know it. You just wanted to protect me. That woman at the Ministry… that Dolores something-or-other… she didn't like me. Well, that's an understatement. I said there wasn't any danger anymore, but I was wrong. I was wrong. You were right, and I got angry because you're always right and I figured… well, I guess I just wanted to be right for a change."

Edie sighed; to her own ears it sounded contrived, but Percy looked thoroughly taken in. His own expression had already softened from shocked surprise to surprised delight. Forgiveness. Oh, how very kind of him to forgive the dear repentant little Muggle. How benevolent.

Edie hoped the bile in her mouth didn't come through in her voice.

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

It was something a little girl would say after eating a cookie before dinner, or letting the dog inside the house with all its muddy footprints, spilling grape juice on the carpet. _Are you mad at me?_ Mad was such a silly-sounding word, but Edie hoped to God that no one in Percy's flat would ever be mad—because it was dangerous word too. She thought about Herbert Chorley quacking luck a duck, trying to strangle some Healer at St. Mungo's. It was the way Edie could easily end up, some day, if she went mad. As it was, she was only angry, and very very clever. To avoid being driven mad, she make up with Percy and make him imagine that she envisioned a future with the two of them together having little Weasley babies with names she'd pick out of an innocuous baby book with little cherubim marching along the spine.

He was smart, smarter than she was, probably, but like every other witch or wizard he underestimated her—hard to believe he could, after what she'd done, but he'd always been a little arrogant, hadn't he? George had said so—George, who filched his extra key and let her into the apartment. He'd said it would kill him to apologize to Percy first, but she was smart to do it. Percy had always been stubborn, he said, didn't talk to their Dad for years one stretch.

"Of course I'm not mad," Percy said, striding across the room to hug her tightly. "And I'm sorry too—I don't ever want you to feel like a prisoner, of any sort."

"Oh Percy," Edie said into his shoulder. He thought she hadn't noticed that he didn't say she _wasn't_ a prisoner.

Percy was so clever with words.


	11. Wizards and Magicians

A/N: Because there's been such a long delay between updates, here's a particularly long chapter. Thanks for being patient!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Wizards and Magicians**

Ravi Singh may have been James Potter's loyal compatriot in all sorts of derring-do, but he wasn't a Gryffindor, and he figured that was why he felt so horribly nervous standing outside of the Hufflepuff common room Saturday morning. He knocked on the gold-and-black painted door; he could hear amiable chattering behind it, and he was reminded of a beehive he and James had poked down from a tree one summer when they were very young. They're gotten stung, a lot, and while James had gleefully related the adventure to an awe-struck Al, Ravi had been holed up in a hospital. He discovered, that summer, that he was allergic to bee venom. It hadn't been St. Mungo's either—his parents were away on a cruise and all the other summer guests at the burrow were at some sort of boring grown-up wine tasting. Except for "Aunt" Audrey, who has some odd Muggle religious persuasion and didn't drink. She'd driven him to a Muggle hospital in Ottery and he'd been prodded with needles by men called _doctors_, and made to drink some horrible-tasting potion that didn't have any magic in it at all.

It was a bad experience.

So naturally, Ravi did not relish the idea of coming in contact with any sort of hive again, Hufflepuff or not—but Kate Weasley was in there, and he had to ask her something, and he really, sincerely, and desperately hoped she wouldn't sting him.

He knocked on the door.

The chattering died on the other side, and a small girl with a shocking amount of freckles opened the little portal. Other faces peered over her shoulder.

"It's a Ravenclaw!" one of them yelled.

_Oooooohhhh!_ came the chorused response. It wasn't a very nice "ooohh," either.

"Er, I'm sorry to bother you, but… well… is Kate Weasley in?" Ravi asked nervously.

"It's a Ravenclaw looking for _Katie_!" the girl called.

_Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!_ the others murmured, even louder. And calls of "Katie, Katie!"

Ravi blushed to the roots of his dark hair.

"Oh, don't be so silly," Ravi heard a voice saying disapprovingly. "You're all a bunch of gossips." It was Kate's voice—he could tell. It sounded a bit like Ignatius's, and he smiled slightly.

"Oh hello Ravi," Kate said happily, climbing out of the hole of an entrance, shutting the door behind her. She was dressed in woolen tights and layers of sweaters, a long yellow coat and two scarves, a hat with ear flaps tying under the chin, boots and gloves with little knitted pompoms on the fingers, and her nose was already red, like her preparation for the cold outside had physiological effects even. "I'm sorry about them—first years are annoying, aren't they."

Ravi nodded. "You're all bundled up," he commented lamely.

"Oh yes!" Kate replied. "I'm going to Hogsmeade! Isn't it exciting? I bet it'll be so pretty with the snow. I didn't get to go _once_ last year, I was so busy studying Arithmancy with Iggy—Ignatious, I mean—can you believe it? But that just means it's more exciting now, doesn't it?"

Ravi nodded. "That's what I was going to ask you about…" He trailed off. She was watching him with eyes-wide.

"Sure, Ravi, ask what?"

Ravi steeled himself and pretended he was James, who would never be nervous about asking out a girl. "I was wondering if you wanted to go with—"

"Hello Kathryn!"

Ravi turned around, interrupted. It was Will MacMillan, bundled up himself, holding a bouquet of wilted, frost-burned flowers.

Kate's face dropped.

"Will, it's not polite to interrupt a private conversation," Kate said curtly, in her best imitation of her brother. "Do you mind?"

Will was undaunted. "I brought these for you, Kathryn," he said, proffering the flowers, undaunted. "From Greenhouse One."

Kate looked at the pathetic flowers with distaste. "That was hardly necessary. I don't need you giving me flowers, William. We're prefects; that's hardly in line with a professional relationship."

Ravi blanched.

"Oh no, they're not from me!" Will exclaimed. "They're from Ignatius. Well, they _were_ my idea—he said they were sentimental and I guess that's true but he's serious, Kathryn."

Kate looked bewildered. "Serious about _what_!?"

"About not fighting anymore!" Will said, beaming. "He says he was wrong about the whole dropping Arithmancy argument—he says he never should have bullied you into taking it in the first place, if you didn't want to. He says he was a condescending prat, just like you said."

Kate's eyes were nearly the size of saucers.

"He really said all that?" she gasped. "He really said he was wrong?"

Will nodded eagerly. "He did, Kathryn, I swear he did—" (at that point Will glanced sideways at Ravi in a thoroughly unpleasant way, a glance which, in her shock and amazement, Kate did not catch) "—And he's glad that you're branching out to make friends in other houses. He thinks very highly of Scorpius, you know. We're all glad you two get along so well."

Ravi turned to Kate incredulously. "Scorpius _Malfoy_?" he asked. "You're friends with _Scorpius Malfoy_?"

Kate raised her chin a trifle, defiant, but she looked confused. "We're in the same class, Ravi, of course I'm _acquainted_ with him. And I'm always _civil._"

Will laughed, harshly, Ravi thought. "More than civil, Kathryn. Aren't you meeting him at Hogsmeade now?"

"How do you know that?" Kate gasped.

"Then it's true?" Ravi exclaimed.

Will feigned embarrassment. "Oh gosh, Kathryn, we didn't know it was a _secret_. I feel awful now—I'd better go. Just know that Ignatius wants to talk to you whenever you get back and apologize in person. Well, that's all—I feel like such an idiot now. Ravi… you were saying something before I interrupted?"

Will's voice was cold and Ravi met his eye with his own, rather failed, attempt at chilly calm. He ended up dropping his head and muttering:

"It was nothing, Kate. I should go to. Have… have a good time at Hogsmeade."

Kate, left alone in the hallway, disappointed and elated and horribly, horribly confused, retied the flaps on her hat underneath her chin, and headed off to meet Scoripus, yes, but also something Ignatius _didn't_ know about, _couldn't_ know about—Arthur.

***

The Hogsmeade branch of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was nearly bursting at the hinges with eager, mischievous, would-be-prankster Hogwartsians on their first weekend out. It wouldn't have been a very difficult task placing a charm on the building to expand the _inside_ but not the out, but perhaps, Arthur thought, the suffocating atmosphere enhanced the experience.

Enhanced that chance that he would get a hex to the back from some third-year's misfiring wand, that's what, Arthur thought. He didn't care much for Hogsmeade. And for all its crowds and incredible sales record, it seemed a melancholy place to Arthur, who had never known his Uncle Fred, but knew his reputation—and knew that he and Uncle George had been like two halves of one whole. They'd be side by side in all the family photos, with identical grins. Even if they hadn't looked alike in terms of physiognomy, Arthur thought, the grins alone would make them twins.

So Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was a sad place to the youngest son of Percy and Audrey Weasley.

No, no, not true—he corrected himself mentally—and _that's_ what I'm here to talk about.

He patted the bookbag strapped across his chest, feeling through the leather the outlines of the evidence that would shock Katie away from Ignatius's side for all time. "Proof!" he said happily, aloud, as a pair of tin Ravenclaw girls stared at him and inched away. he grinned himself, a proper Weasley grin.

"Truth will out!" he muttered happily.

"A philosopher, is that right?" a voice asked from behind. Arthur turned around to face a sharp-faced girl with bright blue eyes.

"Something like that," Arthur said with a shrug.

"You must be in Ravenclaw House, then," the girl said, extending a hand to shake. "I'm Charity."

As a matter of principle, Arthur didn't involve himself with Hogwarts girls—not Katie's friends, nor Rose's or anyone else. First of all, it was always embarrassing to explain that he was a Squib—not that he was ashamed! Arthur was defiantly proud of being different, but he hated the pitying looks they gave him. No girl ever took Arthur seriously after that, or at least no Hogwarts girl. But this girl was smirking, not flirting, and Arthur was feeling confident enough about certain things in his bookbag to bravely face up to inevitable scorn and derision. (_How melodramatic_, he thought.) And besides, Kate was late.

"Arthur," Arthur said drily. "Glad to meet you eavesdropping."

Charity laughed. "When you talk to yourself in a public place, I think you forfeit your right to object, Shakespeare."

Arthur laughed, against his better judgment. "Merchant of Venice. I'm impressed—I was under the impression witches and wizards didn't bother themselves with Muggle literature."

"There are some factions who claim he was a wizard himself, you know," Charity rejoined.

Arthur scoffed. "That's just arrogance—they can't imagine a Muggle could produce more with his plain ink-and-quill than a self-correcting, or quick quotes, one." He crossed his arms defensively. "He wasn't a wizard."

Charity smiled slyly. "You feel very strongly about this, don't you Arthur. Don't like being a wizard, do you? Ravenclaw House not well-read enough?"

Arthur found he was smirking himself. "Who said I was a wizard?" he asked.

"Ha!" Charity said. "What are you then?"

Arthur glanced at the shelf nearby—plain Muggle playing cards for the eccentric. He grabbed a pack and stalked over to the counter and paid, with a handful of knuts he'd dug out of the very depths of his trunk back at Eton. He flashed a smile at Charity and waved the cards at her.

"I'm a magician."

***

When Scorpius arrived at the proposed meeting place—Kate's Uncle's shop, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes—he was mystified to find the crowd of students hovering, not around the more fantastic tools of magical pranksterism, but a small display of Muggle magic tricks at the back of the store.

Curious, and because Kate was nowhere in sight, Scorpius Malfoy decided to investigate.

A small boy with mousy brown hair and a somewhat mousy face as well sat on a barrel of chocolate frogs waving his own cards aloft in the air—a simply, completely non-magical, Muggle pack of 52. A grinning girl wearing a mismatched Ravenclaw tie and Hufflepuff scarf stood beside him with her arms crossed, taunting the crowd.

"Oh come _on_," she called. "Nobody can do better than that? My friend Artie here isn't even using _magic_, and you can't show him up!"

A Slytherin boy from the front shouted back:

"Of course he's using magic! He's just saying the spells silently, is all!"

There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

"He's not even holding his _wand_," the girl retorted. "You're just embarrassed—look at you, you're twice his size and twice his age."

The Slytherin snorted. Scorpius, even more intrigued, pushed his way to front of the gaggle of discontented—yet highly impressed—students.

"What's going on?" he asked.

The boy placed his cards on a makeshift table of stacked boxes of hexed toffee. "I'll show you," he said slyly.

Sliding his sleeves up to the elbows to prove he wasn't hiding anything, the small boy called Artie shuffled the deck of cards quickly and efficiently.

"Pick a card," he said to Scorpius, "And show it to everyone—but don't let me see."

Scorpius shrugged and chose one—the four of spades, as it turned out—and wondered what the trick was that so astonished the multitude.

"Now rip it up," the boy commanded.

Scorpius did.

"All right," the boy said, projecting his voice to echo through the entire shop. He wore a wry smile and seemed to enjoy the suspense of his audience. The girl beside him clasped her hands together eagerly. "I'm going to show you the rest of the cards now, so nobody can say I was stacking the deck."

He fanned the spades and diamonds and kings and queens, along with two jokers, onto the crate before him. Then in one smooth movement, he picked them up again, blew on the deck, and—

When he fanned out the cards another time, every one was the four of spades.

Scorpius gaped.

"And he's _not_ using a wand," the girl said, cutting off the other Slytherin who had begun to open his mouth with a complaint.

But the boy wasn't paying any attention to the argument between his backer and the discontents. He smiled calmly at Scorpius.

"You're Malfoy," he said. It wasn't a question. "Where's my sister?"


	12. Testimony

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Testimony**

Arthur's sister was doing her best to look nonchalant as she stood in line waiting for that walking corpse of a caretaker, Argus Filch, to wave her through into the glorious winter day waiting at Hogsmeade.

Well, hardly so glorious anymore.

Ravi Singh had very nearly asked her out, and Will had appeared quite conveniently to inform her that Ignatius wanted to _apologize_, and blurting out her secret about Scorpius Malfoy in the meantime, thus ensuring that Ravi Sing would _never_ ask her out. Kate had been underestimating Will, and the sight of his pudgy hands holding those obnoxious wilted flowers burned in her memory even as the cold outside froze the rest of her. He'd seemed harmless, pompous but harmless, and she'd never thought he was malicious. Why he'd be so spiteful, Kate couldn't imagine; certainly the timing and mention of Scorpius hadn't been accidental.

Scorpius. Where was she supposed to meet him?

Kate saw the flashing sign above her uncle's shop and began to smile in spite of herself. _Arthur_. Her little brother Arthur, who didn't take orders from anyone and knew exactly how it felt to be an outside. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!

***

"You're Arthur, then?" Scorpius asked the mousy boy.

"To the heathen masses," the blue-eyed girl corrected, "It's Artie the Magnificent."

Arthur, slightly nonplussed, glanced up at the girl who'd somehow insinuated herself into their conversation.

"For your act," she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You could make a great deal of money, you know—and after today your name's going to be spreading through the whole school, I bet."

"Fantastic," Arthur said drily. "But I have to break it to you, Charity: I don't want an act."

"No?" Charity asked carelessly. "No, of course not. Money's _such_ a worse motivator than _spite_."

Scorpius looked at his shoes uneasily and reminded himself that neither of them knew _his_ motives.

"It wasn't spite," Arthur defended himself. "It was simply a matter of shaking those smug, self-satisfied expressions off their smug, self-satisfied faces."

"Sounds like spite to me," Charity said. "You're a regular misanthrope. But come on, Artie—or _Arthur_, whichever—are you going to tell me how you did it?"

Arthur blinked.

Charity planted her hands on her hips determinedly. "I'm not going to _tell_ anyone," she promised. "I just want to know—purely academic reasons. You see… I collect magic."

"_Collect magic?_" Scorpius blurted out before he could check himself. Arthur had a pensive expression on his face and was nodding slightly; _he_ understood, apparently, but Scorpius was out of the loop.

The girl—Charity—blushed. "I don't know how else to explain it," she said. "It's _interesting!_ I want to learn as much as I can, even if…" Charity trailed off.

"Isn't that what you're in school to do? Learn as much magic as you can?" Scorpius glanced at her mis-matched uniform. "Whatever House you're in."

Charity blushed an even deeper red (nearly purple, Scorpius thought) and rounded on Arthur.

"Well I _would_ be, if I belonged to a House at all." She looked mortified and furious and defiant all at once, and Scorpius saw Arthur's face twist into a sympathetic expression of agony. "I'm Charity _Burbage_," she said. "The second. My grandmother was the original Charity Burbage—you know, the one who… got eaten by a horcrux, to put it crudely."

Scorpius was the one blushing now. He couldn't escape it, could he? Not even on a Hogsmeade weekend, not even in a joke shop. His father had been there when the mysterious Edie Filbert had been tortured, and his father had been there when this poor kid's grandmother had been, indeed, 'eaten by a horcrux.' He shuddered. Vicarious guilt, he guessed, and it didn't seem fair at all.

"She defended Muggles, you know," Charity went on. "She wanted inter-magical marriage. Muggles and Wizards, Witches and Squibs, all that sort of thing. Of course, besides the bigoted one, there are a couple theories about the genetic transfer of magical power and ability, and since inter-marriage _is_ so slight, we don't really know whether such a thing would increase the amount of magical folks, or increase the number of squibs, or both, or neither, or—or—anything."

Arthur glanced up, elated. "It depends how dominant the gene is! I can show you my Punnet Squares if you'd like—I have a couple ideas. It's true, though—we'll never know for sure unless and until we have more experience with it. Turning the world into a laboratory! But even if the War's over, I think the Ministry would try to stop it." Arthur thought grimly of his brother. "Their precious International Statue of Secrecy would be compromised."

Charity looked confused. "You're right," she said, surprised to find someone shared her thoughts. "In my case, my grandmother'd married a Muggle and had one daughter, who was a witch. But _she_ married a squib, and they had me—and—and…"

"And you're a Squib too," Arthur finished for her.

"Yes!" Charity said in a loud voice, boldly, and looking like it took quite an effort. "So I can't even _do_ the very simplest of spells—my parents bought me a wand, but it was a gesture of pity, I guess. I _accidentally_ dropped it in the fireplace one Christmas, waiting for Santa Claus." She shrugged. "Travesty, it was."

"But you still… collect magic?" Scorpius asked.

"Well sure!" Charity said. "Like I said, it's _interesting_. I want to know everything, learn everything. I don't care if I'm excluded—they can't keep me from _knowing_."

"So," she said, looking back at Arthur. "For the sake of pity or contempt or whatever you think now, just tell me: How'd you do it? Was it him?" She turned to Arthur. "Were you casting spells on the cards secretly?"

Scorpius shook his head.

"There wasn't any magic," Arthur said. "It's a Muggle trick. Like I said, I'm not a wizard—I'm a magician. I'd tell you if it was a spell, but magicians never reveal their secrets."

Charity squinted at him suspiciously. Arthur sighed, rubbed his forehead, and finally shrugged. _Why not._

"Which means I'm a Squib too."

"Arthur Weasley…" she said, pondering, nodding approvingly. "You're Percy Weasley's son, aren't you? Your mum's a Muggle, isn't she?"

Arthur smiled, thinking of the evidence in his bag. "Definitely a Muggle."

"And you?" she asked Scorpius. "What's your name again?"

The pale boy, who was looking even paler at the moment, took a deep breath. "Scorpius Malfoy."

Charity's eyes widened for a minute, and her hands clenched, but she quickly resumed a determined self-control. "Well it's a regular misfit meeting, isn't it?" she said miserably. "A Squib, another Squib, and a Malfoy who's friends with Squibs."

"Any time, my sister'll be here too," Arthur said, starting to smile. "She's a Hufflepuff."

There was a brief, pregnant pause, and then—all of a sudden, all at once, the three misfits began to laugh. When a round-faced girl with curly red hair appeared in the doorway, they laughed even harder.

They laughed so hard and so long that the woman behind the cash register left her post to ask, angrily, if they'd been drinking some of the store's Double-up Draught. They only laughed more, and the woman, wondering if she ought to throw them out of the shop, decided to let them be, and returned behind the counter. Happy students were good for business.

***

Edie glanced nervously at the sinister-looking chair set before the Wizengamot. Percy glared.

"You're not on trial," he hissed venomously. "They can't make you sit there."

There were straps on the arms, and rusty iron manacles. Edie half-expected some hooded bailiff to drag her in, strap her down, and place a wet sponge on her head in preparation for electrocution. Was there capital punishment in the wizarding world? Or was it like the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church would pass judgment on a heretic and then send her to the secular arm to burn or behead or otherwise do away with.

_Burn_, she thought. _It has to be burn—because the Church can't spill blood_.

It looked like a church hearing, didn't it, with the Wizengamot arrayed in their long red robes, high above her on a raised dais and encircling the room in stands like an auditorium. Was this a play? Was this the College of Cardinals?

Edie knew then that she was terrified. She had to be, if she was suddenly having flashbacks to secondary school history lessons.

"Electrocution doesn't spill blood either," she said to herself, morbidly. "Nor does _Avada Kedavra_."

Percy looked at her with veiled horror.

"No one's going to _kill_ you, Edie," he said. "I promise. No one's going to touch you."

Edie raised her chin an inch. "You don't have to touch someone to cast a spell," she said, and walked into the ominous chamber without looking back. The doors shut behind her, and Percy, excluded by some loophole in the law that someone had discovered (_Dolores Toad Dolores Toad_, Edie's mind whispered), was left to worry outside, all alone.

As angry as she was with him, Edie felt a shiver of fear. Percy _had_ always protected her. For chemistry or for love or for a ministerial duty of protective custody, he'd helped her keep her memory. She'd never been in the Ministry—let alone before any sort of Ministry authorities—without his nervous grip pinching her shoulder.

"Hello," Edie said, looking up at the red-robed figures.

"Please take a seat."

Edie smiled wryly. "But there's only one," she said. "Shouldn't you say 'please take _the_ seat.' It's more accurate, even if it wouldn't be so very polite."

The disapproving looked on the faces of the stern witches and wizards above her made Edie shiver again, but, as she'd noted, Percy was not there with her, which meant that she didn't have such a check on her insolent tongue either. _Don't be pert, Edie Filbert_, she told herself. It was what Percy would have said. Or he would have grimaced painfully. Ah well.

The play began.


	13. CoConspirators

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Co-Conspirators**

The questions came hard and fast.

"Name?"

"Edith Elizabeth Filbert."

"Profession?"

"Student-University student."

"Age?"

"Really, sirs and madams, a lady never tells."

The Head Warlock looked down at her sternly. She was terrified, but she was still the irreverent Edie Filbert who'd snuck into the Quidditch World Cup and faced down a Death Eater and defended Hogwarts with witches and wizards. She wasn't going to cringe and cower out of caution, however much Percy—biting his nails outside the great chamber—would have wanted her to.

"You're being determinedly impertinent," the Warlock said, a cadaverous man with a bushy gray mustache. "You can't be much older than twenty."

Edie realized, on second glace, that it was not a mustache at all, but a profusion of nose hair grown to extraordinary proportions.

She despaired of understanding wizard fashion.

"Your Excellency," Edie said, sitting up straight in her execution-chair. "I am a British citizen and have rights under law. I have been most cooperative in coming here at all, as I've committed no crime I can find in any legal books, however hard I search in the Oxford libraries."

The shocked looks on the witches' and wizards' faces gave her courage. Let them be shocked. Muggles had been underestimated for too long. She continued in a stronger voice.

"If I am to be questioned I demand legal representation, of my own choosing. If I am to be summoned before an unrecognized court I must be formally charged with some crime. If I am to be held, against my will, in a strange household then I—"

The shouting of her questioners had grown too loud for her to finish.

"Held against your will?" one man cried out indignantly. "You've been given unprecedented freedom of movement!"

"Hear hear!" a woman seconded.

"If this is unprecedented," Edie said scornfully, gesturing to the chains on the arms of the chair, the metal clinking and wriggling and clearly desiring to wrap itself around her freckled arms. "Then perhaps there's something wrong with your precedent."

"You call this an unrecognized court, but I assure you," the man said with a sniff. "The Prime Minister is quite fully aware of our existence, as well as Her Majesty herself. There is great rapport and cooperation among all parties"

The room fell deathly silent. The man who'd spoke out paled like he'd just seen a bogart and slowly took his seat. State secrets. Not even _this_ Muggle was supposed to know of the magical and non-magical governments' _cooperation._

"I imagine," Edie whispered. "That when you say 'cooperation,' you mean coercion. As it seems to be a Prime Minister who did not approve of such secret-keeping of backdoor dealing would have little choice but to build… rapport. For his own existence."

There was no commotion at this; shock still hung tense in the air. But in the silence, Edie's head was abuzz as she realized that she was far worse-off than she'd even thought. She'd appealed to Muggle law and rights of citizenship, but not even Parliament could protect her, not even nominally. Edie had thought—if the Minister, the _real_ Minister, knew that minds were being wiped and whole histories destroyed, certainly it would stop! But of course, there was no stopping it. The Minister had no more power than she did, or Herbert Chorley, and say the _Minister_ got out of line… well, a woman like Dolorez Umbridge could be dispatched to deal with him as well. Maybe even a man like Percy.

"You have quite a flair for the melodramatic, Miss Filbert," the Warlock commented drily, and Edie wondered if that was a smile beneath his nose bristles. "But perhaps we do as well. There's no need for such an intimidating interrogation, is there?"

Edie watched him stonily.

"Questions can be asked by one as well as fifty," he continued. "We'll recess now, and finish up one-on-one, all right? You and the good Madame Umbridge. How does that sound?"

Edie looked up at the placid, flaccid face of Dolores Umbridge.

"Lovely, sir," she replied. "It's sounds just lovely."

Percy couldn't believe what had happened during her interview. Literally—he couldn't believe it.

"You didn't say that."

"Yes, Percy," Edie said. "I did."

"No, no, no you _didn't_," he insisted again, as if saying something so forcefully could make it true.

"Percy," Edie said gently, placing a hand on each shoulder and looking him straight in the eyes. "I wasn't going to engage in some farce of casuistry for the sake of prudence. I think you know I'm not a terribly prudent person."

Percy wilted under her touch. "I should have _been_ there."

"If you'd been there and kept me from saying what I said, then I wouldn't know what I do now—that your Ministry has a stranglehold on mine."

"That's exactly why I should've been there," Percy said grimly. "So you _wouldn't_ know."

Edie flinched, and dropped her hands to her side. She felt like she'd just been slapped in the face. Percy would never hit her, she knew, not physically. And even with all the 'protective custody' nonsense, he'd not yet even hit her with a spell. Never. But any muggle could make rhetoric hurt, and so could Percy Weasley.

"So it's true then…" she choked, hating herself for wanting to cry. She'd known he was lying to her! She hadn't known what all the lies actually were, but she'd known they were lurking behind every calculated hand-holding. But even so, the fact that Percy kept denying them made her feel better. In his twisted way, he still cared about her feelings enough to lie about lying.

Edie realized with a start that her sudden longing for the good ol' days of lying about lying made her just as twisted as him.

"It's true, then," she repeated, more steadily. "I'm not an equal partner in this relationship at all, am I? And you're just here to keep me quiet for the Ministry."

Percy ran his hands through his hair, his telltale nervous tic that Edie watched nostalgically. At one point, she knew, it had been endearing.

"Edie," Percy said, regaining his composure, as he always did. "I do care about you Edie, very much. And for that reason I've always endeavored to—"

"Oh don't get pompous on me Percy!" Edie said with a scoff. "I know, I know—I know all the lines. You were telling the Ministry you were protecting them from me, but you were really protecting _me_ from _them_. Etcetera, et al." She glared and, to her surprise and indignation, Percy laughed.

"Stop it!" she demanded. "It's not funny!"

"Of course it's funny," Percy said with a winning smile that Edie had to forcibly prevent herself from thinking endearing. "You accuse me of pomposity, and then _you_ throw down the Latin."

"You just said 'pomposity' to defend yourself against pomposity," Edie retorted in a venomous tone.

Percy grinned. "_That_ was a satirical usage."

"You're parodying yourself?" she sneered. "Not possible. You take yourself so seriously."

"And you don't?" Percy shot back. "Perhaps melodrama is the word for you, Edith Elizabeth Filbert, if you called the Prime Minister oppressed in front of the entire Wizengamot."

Edie paused. "I didn't say oppressed," she corrected in a little voice. "I said that his existence would be in danger if he tried to fight corrupt magical coercion."

The two looked at each in silence for a moment, then suddenly burst into full-bodied laugher. Edie was holding her side in pain by the time they settled down, and Percy's face was red and hot. Edie knew because she placed her hand on his cheek, affectionately.

"I lied to you too," she confessed. "About being sorry—that day in the flat. And about forgiving you. Because I wasn't, and I didn't, and I don't want to name our children after saints, either."

Percy shrugged. "Well it was well played, Edie. And we can name a boy after me, anyway. Percy isn't a saint's name, is it?"

Edie grimaced. "Well if it has to be your namesake, let's call him Ignatius, all right?"

"That's a saint's name, and not much better than Percy," Percy said.

"Doesn't matter," Edie said stiffly. "I don't want you to get your way."

Edie and Percy looked at each other darkly. She didn't trust him, and after the melodrama at the Ministry today, he certainly didn't trust her. But as Edie had realized, she _didn't_ have anyone at her back—except Percy Weasley, whose loyalty had always wavered in a rather tortured way between Edie and the Ministry. And Edie thought she had a solution.

"Percy," she said. "I've been thinking about your legislation."

He watched her suspiciously.

"I know I encouraged you to promote regulatory measures protecting Muggles physically—but I think it's more important to protect Muggle rights." She nodded to emphasize her point. "Freedoms."

"In what way?" he asked, dubious.

"Repeal mental obliteration laws." She smiled darkly. "Prohibit the use of memory charms."

Percy laughed incredulously. "That's political suicide, Edie. It's stepping on the toes of the International Statute of Secrecy, for Merlin's sake!"

She didn't say a word, and the dawning expression on his face proved that he quickly understood.

"This is risky, Edie," he said. "For you

"What _isn't_ risky for me?" she asked carelessly.

"It could take a very long time," he added.

"Just a step at a time," she replied.

They looked at each other in silence, which seemed to be an increasingly common occurrence, but Edie was filled with adrenaline and almost shivering with the excitement of her idea.

"This is risky," Percy said slowly, again, but this time adding, "For _me_."

"Percy," Edie said, gripping his hands as tightly as if they were about to apparate. "This is important to me… it might be the most important thing I ever do."

Percy looked at her sharply. "You'll stay, then? And you'll placate the Ministry, for now, to keep things calm?"

Edie nodded. "It might take a long time, Percy Weasley, but it's going to happen. And I'll be beside you the whole time."

"I'll be Minister of Magic," he said, smiling darkly. Edie matched his smile.

"And we'll break the International Statute of Secrecy."


	14. The Most Secretive Family at Hogwarts

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**The Most Secretive Family at Hogwarts**

"This is nice," Arthur said as he walked arm in arm with his sister Kate down the snowy streets of Hogsmeade, Charity and Scorpius on either side of them. "I _almost_ feel like a Hogwarts student."

A couple times in the last quarter hour, they'd passed gawping first-and-second-years who'd seen Arthur's Muggle magic at Uncle Fred's shop—the children (they seemed like such children to Arthur, who was only a couple years older) pointed excitedly, and one asked for Arthur's autograph. Charity had snickered at him when he pulled a ballpoint pen out of his pocket to sign. He had no skill with a quill and ink: he wrote too rapidly and _still_ couldn't get his hand to keep time with the speed of his thoughts, to think about penmanship.

"That's the thing about the magical community," he told the little second-year boy, who'd looked so eagerly at the foreign pen that he gave it as a gift in exchange for enduring some mild pontification—

"The thing about the magical community is that, unlike Muggle technology, there is no incremental growth and concept of progress. It's a stagnant culture, and all the more so because it's such a small, insular community which because of the International Statute of Secrecy doesn't permit the influx of new ideas that could refresh society. So while Muggles are using practical and efficientwriting tools like ballpoint pens and laptops, witches and wizards are still plucking the feathers off of dead birds."

The second-year boy, who turned out to be clever, and turned out to be Frank Franklin Longbottom, much to Kate's delight, asked why Arthur thought quick quotes quills weren't practical or efficient. Arthur brightened.

"That's a great question!" he exclaimed, in the happy surprise of an intelligent young person who rarely meets other intelligent young people. "It's because they rely on a power we don't understand. Magic has yet to be quantified—even by other wizards and witches—and magical theory is barely more than superstition with a veneer of philosophical terms and references to metaphysics. It's dangerous to trust something that's still so hidden. And even what _is_ known is kept away from the public, in the Department of Mysteries. I doubt we'll _ever_ see any of _that_."

Arthur smiled at little Longbottom and shook his hand, like they were two adults and good friends. Frank Franklin beamed with a smile so wide that Arthur hoped the tensile strength of the kid's skin was strong enough to hold the strain.

"Thanks!" Frank Franklin said, nearly jumping up and down from the attention. Arthur smiled and waved goodbye; Kate kissed Frank Franklin on the cheek, and when the boy was gone, she kissed Arthur too.

"Do you think he understood half of that?" Scorpius asked, watching Frank Franklin trot away with his new prize and thoughts of metaphysics dancing in his head. "He looks happy, at least."

Kate giggled. "Arthur—you sounded just like dad!"

Arthur scowled. "Did not."

"You _so_ did," she replied. "And Ignatius. You sound like him too."

"Am not!" Arthur exclaimed, all the more shocked because deep down he knew it was probably true.

Edie only giggled harder. "_All_ the Weasley men can give a good speech," she said. "Or at least—all _our_ Weasley men."

Arthur scowled again, knowing he looked like his brother and sounded like his brother, and felt a secret pleasure that Charity hadn't laughed when Kate numbered him among the Weasley _men_.

"Did you mean all that about magical culture, Arthur?" Kate asked, chewing on the inside of her cheek, which Arthur knew meant she was thinking hard. "You know, about magical culture being _stagnant_ or something?"

"I did mean it," he said with an almost sanctimonious nod of his head. "I never say what I don't mean."

Kate burst into a fit of giggles, this time bringing their new friend Charity into the laughter by sheer power of exuberance.

"Stop it, Katie!" Arthur complained, annoyed.

"Then stop acting like Ignatius!"

That shut up Arthur quick.

"Well," he finally said, ignoring Kate and Charity's stifled giggles and appreciating Scorpius's polite pretense at deafness. "I _did_ lie about one thing…"

They had arrived at The Three Broomsticks, which Arthur had suggested as a very loud place where they wouldn't be overhead. He remembered the stories his aunts and uncles recounted at family vacations, even if they never noticed he was in the room. Scorpius spotted an unoccupied table in a back corner, squished against the wall by a large party nearby and half-obscured by a life-size plaster bust of Aberforth Dumbledore. Scorpius looked at it strangely and opened his mouth as if to ask a question, but just ended up sighing and shrugging and sitting down. He gave Arthur the very look Arthur would have given—_what's the point of even asking?_

Arthur would never understand wizarding aesthetics.

"So what did you say you lied about, Artie?" Charity reminded him.

Arthur was fairly sure no one had invited Charity Burbage II along to conspire with them, but there she was, looking as cool and comfortable as if she were a member of the family. But then, so did Scorpius, and he wasn't family either.

Squibs, Slytherins, and general misfits _were_ a family of sorts, Arthur supposed. In a strange, strange way. And so, in a strange way, he didn't find it strange to lay sensitive family history on the table, in front of two strangers and a sister who'd been reporting to the arch-manipulator Ignatius Weasley for fifteen years.

The world had turned upside-down.

"So you know about our mother, Audrey Stevens," Arthur began, addressing Scorpius. The Malfoy boy nodded. Charity smiled.

"_I_ don't know, but it's all right—go on. I'm a quick study," she said casually.

Arthur did go on.

"Well what none of you know—_no_, not even you, Kate—is that _I've_ known for years that mum, who we've all called Audrey Stevens our whole lives, really isn't Audrey Stevens."

The other three all spoke up at once: Charity, Kate, and Scorpius.

"This is _such_ a better weekend since I met you, Artie—"

"You _knew_ already? Mum and dad _told _you? I always said you were her favorite, Arthur, no matter what you say—"

"And all this time I thought _I_ came from the most secretive family at Hogwarts."

"All right, all right," Arthur said, trying to get them quiet. Not even Aberforth Dumbledore's plaster head could divert attention for long, now that the sun had started to peek through the cloud cover and the chilled crowd inside started filtering out of the pub. "Let me finish!

So he did.

"Back when you went to school one year, Katie, when we came to say goodbye to you on the platform, I was angry and jealous. I'd be alone in London until I went off to school myself, and even then I'd be alone. I was always alone. And then, naturally, I hear Albus Severus and Rose talking, terrified that they're going to get Sorted into Slytherin—no offense to you, Scorpius, of course. I didn't agree with them. And then instead of telling them that it didn't _matter_ where they got Sorted, Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron laughed and joked and said that of _course_ they wouldn't. And I ran off and cried somewhere, like a baby.

("Oh Arthur!" Kate cried, reaching her hand across the table to comfort him. He shook his head and sighed. "Will you let me finish? Please?")

"I heard Mum and Dad asking where I was—it was all foggy on the platform that day, and no one knew where I was because I hadn't said goodbye to Albus Severus and Rose, and you were off with Ignatius, and it was all rather distressing.

"But Dad found me—I was sitting behind someone's luggage, if I remember right—and asked what was wrong. I said what I still think, that it's absurd to complain about _which_ House when some people don't get any. I'd've taken Slytherin—no offense meant to you, Scorpius, but it's the family culture, you know? I'd have taken any Sorting. They were selfish to complain.

"So I told him all that, I'm sure with a lot more sobbing and sniffling involved—

("Oh, don't be so self-deprecating, Arthur," Kate said. "I don't remember ever seeing you cry about that." Arthur skewered her with a cold look. "Well I'm good at hiding in the smog, then, aren't I?")

"So I told him that. And Dad said that, in his opinion, there was a lot to be said for being a Muggle. That Muggles are innovative, and creative, and sharp—not like so many wizards think and impugn them for ignorance and blindness. Dad told me that he'd met Mum at the Quidditch World Cup, which she'd snuck into completely by accident. And then she got tortured by Death Eaters, but ran away and kept the Ministry off her trail for _months_, and then ended up at Diagon Alley again, and eventually St. Mungo's. That they wiped her memory there, but it didn't completely work, the charm didn't, so she ended up remembering little things… And she found her way to the Burrow, where she Floo'd herself to Hogwarts. She found Dumbledore's penseive, and talked to his portrait, and got Sorted by the Sorting Hat.

("Wait—what?" Scorpius asked. "This is infinitely better than our textbook's account." "I'm going to get my Muggle Studies NEWT in two years," Kate said encouragingly. "You should do it too, Scorpius!" "Everyone says it's a soft option, you know," he replied. "Everyone says _stop interrupting me_," Arthur said. They fell silent. Only Charity coughed a little, a cough that sounded suspiciously like _Mr. Weasley_.)

"It Sorted her into Muggle, if that's of any interest. Apparently, it had some very flattering things to say about Muggles. In any case, she fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, and saved a girl. But then she was attacked by dementors and by a Death Eater—not in that order, I think. The Death Eater got called away, thank God, but while he was torturing her… the second time she was tortured by Death Eaters, which should be enough for any Muggle _not_ to want to remember anything about magic, you think?... he broke through the memory charm and she got everything back.

"And then she and dad married.

"Well I thought this all very, very interesting, and decided to do some research. I couldn't find any record of an Audrey Stevens involved in Ministry hearings regarding dad's legislation, but there was mention of an Edie Filbert and a Sharon Filbert. It didn't take much digging to find that Edie's Audrey, and Sharon Filbert's our aunt."

Kate gasped. "We have an aunt? On mum's side?"

Arthur nodded. "They had a falling out."

"How do you know?" Kate asked, crestfallen.

"Because I hacked into mum's email account and went through her archives. Sharon Filbert knows that dad's a wizard, and she went in front of the Ministry too, but she doesn't like the secrecy at all. She thinks it would kill our grandparents to find out."

Kate whispered, "We have grandparents too, on mum's side."

"That's right. A retired surveyor and a social worker. Interesting, isn't it?

"In any case, once I learned all this, I wondered what else I could find. So I hacked into _Dad's_ computer and found his archives."

"Your father uses the Internet?" Scorpius asked. "Isn't that a bit taboo at the Ministry?"

"There's a bit of a stigma, true," Arthur agreed. "But think of the security benefits—the encryption's nothing a teenage computer science geek couldn't crack on a lazy afternoon, but a grown wizard wouldn't know where to start. And if said wizard tried to magick his way into Dad's files, the hard drive would fry. An obvious tip-off."

Scorpius, trying very hard to follow the conversation—which was more than either of the girls could say, both of whom were still occupied by earlier parts of the story—asked: "But… if the hard drive was… destroyed. Would he lose all his… his… information?"

Arthur beamed with the look of an intelligent young man thrilled to meet another intelligent young man.

"No, but the wizard 'hacker' might think so—making him complacent. _Or_ it would tell Dad that someone was trying to get into his files. But the files themselves would be intact, since he stores everything in the cloud."

The three looked at Arthur, completely and utterly lost. He laughed, the first genuinely amused laugh Kate had heard in a long time.

"You don't understand anything I'm saying, do you?"

The three shook their heads in unison.

Arthur shrugged. "Well, suffice it to say—no one can mess with his computer now, even when he takes it to the Ministry. He put a magic-repelling spell around his office. Around certain parts of the house, too."

"That seems like a contradiction," Charity said, bemused. "A magic spell to repel magic?"

"You're think so, wouldn't you?" Arthur exclaimed, warming to his subject. "But it works! Dad invented it himself."

Scorpius whistled, impressed.

"Er… Arthur?" Kate asked timidly. "This is all really interesting and everything, but… you said you had some sort of hard proof that would help us?"

Arthur gave his sister his widest, brightest grin, and thought of Frank Franklin's self-satisfied smile. Arthur heaved his backpack up onto the table, and let it drop with a satisfying _smack_. He unzipped the front pocket, and pulled of one of half a dozen reels of what looked like a strange iridescent film.

"There's one closet in Mum's office that he keeps out of the magic vacuum. I knew that meant something magic was in there, and I found these."

"They look like home movies," Kate said.

"Or microfilm reels," Charity guessed.

Scorpius leaned close and looked at the shimmering green and blue film. "It reminds _me_ of some sort of amphibious membrane."

"Well you're all close, but it's a little more frightening than any of those," Arthur said. "Don't faint, Katie, promise? Because these are Mum's memories."

"Shite," Scorpius muttered. "Your family's _definitely_ stranger than mine."


	15. The Secret's Out

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**The Secret's Out**

With all the intrigue of her brother's visit and the strange film reels he'd brought along with him, Edie felt like she hadn't been to class in _forever_. Bathsheba Babbling's babbling would almost be a relief—Kate needed to think about ordinary things for an hour, and not the fact that Arthur was wearing a borrowed uniform, passing himself off as a Slytherin and conspiring with Scorpius as to how to get the strange "home movies" to play. And all this right under Ignatius's nose.

Kate _desperately_ needed some ordinary.

She was eating as boring a breakfast as she could find among all the dishes the Hogwarts house elves had prepared and magicked onto the long House tables in the Great Hall. Plain porridge, milk, and a couple pieces of a mysterious fruit that was probably out-of-season cantaloupe. A couple times she glanced across the hall to the Slytherin table, where Arthur—as a disguise—wore an emerald-green tie, a grey sweater vest, and a haughty look. She hadn't noticed it that weekend, but Arthur and Scorpius had a lot in common—they even looked alike, a little. Sharp pointed faces and flinty grey eyes, an almost unhealthy pallor. They had the focused expressions of the singularly observant. And whenever they looked it you, it was like a challenge.

Kate decided that, if he'd been born a wizard, Arthur would have ended up in Slytherin. And that wouldn't have been bad, either.

But Kate knew she had to stop staring—she had a job even on this morning when she wished for the ordinary, and that was to keep the also very observant Head Boy Ignatius Lucian Weasley from noticing that his Squib brother was acting the imposter and passing himself off as a friend of Scorpius Malfoy.

"Ignatius!" Kate called, immediately she saw her older brother enter the Great Hall. The tall, bespectacled Weasley boy turned and smiled at her, supremely self-satisfied. When _Ignatius_ looked at you, it was like he thought he owned the world.

"Kathryn," he said, sitting beside her and giving her a brotherly one-armed hug. "I expect you talked to Will?"

Kate nodded, and looked away so Ignatius wouldn't see her flush with humiliation. She'd been trying not to look at the Ravenclaw table either, where Ravi sat with James, who'd finally consented to hold court somewhere _other_ than the Gryffindor table—because both were furious with Kate for double-dealing with Ignatius and, of course, befriending a Malfoy.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I talked to him."

"Well? Do you… forgive me?" Ignatius asked, and at this Kate looked up quickly. Her brother actually sounded sincere, as if, for all his calculated scheming, he really did care about her and her opinion. Maybe she wasn't just a pawn after all to Ignatius.

No, no, not possible. He was a control freak who cared about her feelings only to the extent that they served his interests… Right?

Kate sighed. "Ignatius, there's nothing to forgive."

"I put you in a horrible position—I never should've used you like that."

Kate laughed incredulously. "Iggy! I'm the one who suggested I spy on James for you. I'm still not entirely sure _why_, but it really was my idea to begin with, and if I muddled things, well, that's my fault too."

Ignatius frowned. "What do you mean you don't know _why_?"

"I know you don't like James Potter—he breaks all the rules and never gets caught… I don't understand _that_ either," Kate said with a shrug. "But you usually don't engage in personal vendettas, Iggy. I don't know the larger purpose."

"The larger purpose…" He shook his head as though shocked she hadn't figured it out yet. "Kate, Dad's beginning his campaign this year. And the whole family is going to be under intense media scrutiny. You didn't know? Dad's running for Minister."

Kate gaped, completely forgetting that she was angry and frustrated and nervous about all of her _own_ schemes.

"Dad's running for Minister," she repeated, stunned. "But… what's that have to do with spying on James Potter?"

Ignatius laughed, and squeezed her with a one-armed hug again. She realized, with a start and an unexpected wave of affection for her big brother, that she'd been calling him Iggy, and he'd called her a good kid.

"I never really wanted you to _spy_ on him, Kate," Ignatius said. "I wanted you to befriend him, as distasteful as I find the idea. You're such a good kid, I thought you might be a good influence. Especially since that Ravenclaw prefect, Ravi Singh, seems to like you so much."

Kate silently cursed her Weasley genes as she flushed to the tips of her hair.

"I just don't understand why it didn't work…" Ignatius mused as Kate's face burned.

"Oh I can tell you that," Kate said darkly. "Will told him that I was going to Hogsmeade with Scorpius Malfoy."

"What? He was only supposed to say that I apologized!"

Kate smiled in spite of herself. "I guess Will has his own motives."

"Like _what_?" Ignatius demanded, incensed.

"You see everything, Iggy!" Kate laughed. "Can't you tell? _He_ likes me a lot too. And he just got jealous."

"Of Ravi, or of Scorpius?"

"Of both, I guess."

"You're dating _both_ of them?"

"I'm not dating either!" Kate said, rather too loudly, as she continued to laugh hysterically. She laughed so hard that she began to hiccup, and nearly choked on her unidentifiable fruit.

Ignatius scowled. "What's so funny?"

"Everything," Kate said with a grin. "The world's ridiculous, isn't it? Dad's running for Minister and I didn't know, and Will's in love with me and _you_ didn't know, and Mum's two different people and Arthur _did_ know but nobody else—"

Kate stopped herself too late.

"Arthur?" Ignatius asked warily. "When were you in contact with Arthur? And _what_ did you say about Mum?"

"I didn't mean—"

"No, no, don't lie to me Kate," Ignatius said sternly. "Don't you realize that, once he announced his candidacy, every secret our family ever had is going to be printed in the papers? And there's going to be enough negative press already, what with Aunt Hermione campaigning against him and—"

Now it was Kate's turn to gasp.

"_What!_"

Ignatius sighed.

"We _both_ have a bit to tell each other, don't we?"

Kate sighed, and nodded, and very shakily pointed to the Slytherin table.


	16. Truce

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Truce**

She had a delicate china tea set patterned with a pink flowers and a foreground of gamboling felines. And that was the _least_ nauseating part of her décor. Dolores Umbridge's Ministry office reeked of floral perfume so thick Edie could hardly breathe, and even the unflappable Head of Magical Law Enforcement beside her looked slightly quesy.

"It's very generous of you to permit this more informal interview," Percy said stiffly, pinching Edie's shoulder in a viselike grip she had to try hard to keep from finding endearing.

"Oh, well, it's nothing," the older woman twittered, twisting a ringlet of gray hair around a chubby finger. Edie wondered vaguely why she hadn't developed gangrene by now, considering how fat her fingers were and how tight her rings. But that was magic, she supposed. "We wouldn't want to frighten sweet little Edie Filbert, now, would we?"

Dolores simpered at Edie, and Edie simpered back so convincingly that Percy's hand on her shoulder relaxed.

"It's very generous," Edie parroted. "And I'm so grateful."

It was all a lie, and all three of them knew it. Edie knew what she'd said the afternoon before; she'd told Percy; and, of course, Dolores Toad had been there too. She couldn't possibly believe Edie's affected smiles and platitudes. But then, it wasn't as if Edie or Percy believe anything _she_ said either.

"We'll let's sit down and have a little chat, then, shall we?"

Dolores gestured to two chairs draped in hideous, lumpy, pink crocheted afghans so thick that Edie might have though them piles of laundry if she hadn't looked so closely. They sat down, and smiled falsely and folded their hands in their laps.

"So," Dolores began in a sweet tone. "Why don't you tell me what happened that summer at the World Cup, all right dear? Let's start there."

Edie smiled. "Well it was very early in the morning, and I was in my bedroom at my parents' house in Otter St. Catchpole. I heard voices coming through the window, and I peered out to see who it was. They were talking in nonsense words. I saw a family with red hair, and a boy with black hair and glasses, and I followed them…"

As Edie told felt Percy slouch a little in his seat beside her, relaxing just the slightest bit because Edie was, as someone in the Ministry might say, "cooperating." Of course, she left out all the parts in which Percy was complicit, but Dolores seemed convinced—even if her beady eyes did keep sliding over to Percy Weasley and the couple's entwining fingers.

"And that's what happened," Edie finished lamely, with a disarming shrug and smile.

Dolores clapped her hands. "How lovely, my dear! And so adventurous. What a story! Of course, as we both know, your sister was quite unfortunately dragged into this whole little escapade of yours. And the Chief Warlock believes that it would be useful to have her testimony recorded as well…" She gestured to a quick quotes quill jotting notes. Percy, who knew shorthand and had been a court stenographer for Barty Crouch senior before the man was _imperiused_, glanced at the cheap reporter tool with distaste.

"Is that really necessary, Dolores?" he asked coolly. "Edie's sister is, after all, still a very young woman, and has had her memory partially wiped already. The psychological damage that may result from another exposure might cause unknown damage and—"

"Oh Percy darling," Dolores tittered. "You don't _really_ believe all that Muggle nonsense, do you?"

Percy reddened, but Edie squeezed his hand.

"I'm so silly," she said lightly. "I shouldn't bother Percy with the contents of my University lectures—even Muggles think psychology's quackery!"

They gave forced laughs and lapsed into an unpleasant silence. All three of them knew that Edie was a psychology student and Oxford's Brookes College. She'd been a psychology student even _before_ regaining her memories under torture. Even then, she'd been drawn to studies of the human mind, consciousness, and memory. It wasn't quackery. Edie had learned that there was little original research in the magical world—not even in academia. Only in the Department of Mysteries, and what happened there remained… mysterious.

Edie thought back to that meeting with Dumbledore in her bedroom, only a handful of years ago but seeming like a lifetime. Maybe that had something to do that, in her own mind, the original memory was weaker than her memory of the memory—her recollection of the night in Dumbledore's office, falling into his penseive…

_CRACK!_

_Edie was hitting the snooze button on her alarm clock for the third or fourth time when another, sharper noise woke her up for good. She almost screamed. In the middle of her room, wearing robes of dark blue flecked with moving silver stars and moons, stood a tall wizard with a crooked nose and a long silver beard. His eyes smiled down at her kindly from behind gold-rimmed eyeglasses._

_"I apologize for having startled you," he said. "But I wanted to get to you before you were amongst your family or friends. I thought I might already have been too late– I first ended up quite accidentally in the house of your next-door neighbor, I believe, a Regina Sloan."_

_"You- you're here for my memory, aren't you?" Edie asked, drawing her covers around her shoulders protectively as she sat up._

_The man nodded pensively. "I suppose you could say that. Perhaps more accurately, I am here for your memor__ies__. I am here to find out how a young Muggle girl could possibly have done all the things she claimed to have done in this letter." From a fold of his robe, the wizard pulled out Edie's envelope._

_"Then you– you are– you're Professor Albus Dumbledore?" she asked, incredulous._

_"Yes, that would be me," he said placidly, sitting down at Edie's desk. "As to your leter– if it wasn't in violation of the International Statute of Secrecy, your adventures would be quite an impressive feat."_

_Edie gave a small smile. There was something about this wizard that disarmed her. He seemed… utterly trustworthy._

_"Of course, I do not blame you at all for trying to keep your memories. They sanctity of the mind is… quite integral to a person's identity, I would say. To invade a person's mind, to be able to alter what they perceive to be reality, is a great power. Sometimes, I think, too great."_

She laughed again, a dark abandoned laugh, but neither of the other joined in.

"Is something funny, dear?" Dolores asked in a parody of solicitousness.

Edie smiled grimly. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was just thinking of something someone told me, a long time ago, about Muggle minds…"

The sanctity of the human mind—and this was her little _sister's_ mind. Sharon, who'd been terrified by nightmares of Dolores Umbridge for years after the horrible woman charmed her memories away in a playground at her elementary school, who'd found a copy of _The Quibbler_ in Edie's bureau and worried about Dark Lords and Death Eaters and a boy named Harry Potter who'd risen from the dead—long before she knew what any of it meant. Who's ask Edie if the explosions in the neighborhood, destroying the Lovegood house, had been the work of terrorists.

The Ministry of Magic didn't care anything about the sanctity of the human mind, but Edie did. And Percy did. For all he'd lied about the Ministry's intentions, he _had_ kept her own memories safe. And someday, when Percy was Minister, Muggle minds would be ask free as anyone else's. The War wasn't over yet.

"Of course you can talk to my sister," Edie said in a steely voice. "I'll talk to her about it tonight."

Edie knew there wasn't another option, not today. And there wouldn't be any permanent solution for years—so until then, she'd have to find another way to keep her sister safe. She'd learned from Percy that sometimes, you had to lie to the people you cared about to protect them, and Edie would have to lie to Sharon—however painful things got.

"I'll talk to her about it tonight."

Arthur and Ignatius looked at each other as though they'd like to duel. Not with wands (not that Arthur could use one), but the old-fashioned Muggle way, with broadswords and daggers. Or in chain mail, on warhorses, with jousting lances.

Needless to say, it was an unpleasant meeting for everyone involved.

"I'm so sorry, Arthur," Kate said in a pleading tone. "I only told him because he said Dad's running for Minister and all our secrets are going to come out anyway and—"

"He's just trying to scare you, Katie," Arthur cut her off, exasperated. "And of _course_ Dad's running for Minister. I'm surprised it's taken so long."

"But Aunt Hermione—"

"Wait—your aunt's running against your father?" Scorpius asked, as shocked as Kate had been before. "And I thought _my_ family had problems."

"Please, Arthur, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't apologize, Kathryn," Ignatius said, disgusted. "You were right to tell me. Arthur shouldn't be here at all, let alone skipping school himself to sneak around and—"

Arthur laughed harshly. "Right, so it would be _less_ wrong if I snuck and to Hogwarts and pretended to be a Slytherin _just_ on the weekends?"

"Don't be smart, Arthur, you're going to get in a great deal of trouble, and worse of all, you've pulled Kathryn into it. Can you imagine how much damage this could do to Dad's campaign?"

Arthur smiled. "Trust me, Ignatius," he said coolly. "There are people in our family who've been a _lot_ more places they shouldn't have been than me."

Ignatius frowned. "What do you mean?"

Arthur pulled a small reel of film out of his pocket and tossed it to his brother. They'd left the Great Hall for an empty classroom to talk openly, but now Kate was starting to wonder if perhaps they should've stayed in a public place. Ignatius could so easily destroy the film then and there—but he'd never make a scene in front of students or professors.

Kate had no doubt he'd want to eliminate the evidence of anything untoward their mother had done—if it could impugn their politically-active father. And _especially_ because so many of the images on the film indicted Mr. Weasley along with his wife.

Ignatius pulled out a length of the strange iridescent material and held it out to the light. The ribbon of tape was divided into squares, in each one small moving images of other people—Percy, Uncle Fred, even in one, it looked like, the squat figure of Dolores Umbridge. Ignatius gaped, eyes wide behind his thick glasses.

"What _is_ this?" he asked, forgetting in an instant that he and Arthur had been enemies since childhood.

"Mum's memories," Arthur said, tone matter-of-fact and no longer resentful. That was another thing about her brothers, Kate thought—emotions and personal vendettas _did_ come second to business. And this was serious business.

"I think they're hers because she never appears in them, even though some of them show the inside of Dad's flat or…" Arthur trailed off, embarrassed. "You know. I skip past those squares."

Kate and Scorpius looked at each other with horror. Ignatius pursed his lips squeamishly.

"Oh Arthur," Kate said. "You _really_ didn't have to say that."

Arthur grinned evilly. So maybe he didn't _entirely_ renounce his grudges.

"In any case," he continued. "We can see the moving images in each square, but we don't have sound and we don't have continuity. If it's really a film, I don't know how we can play it. That's why I'm here at Hogwarts—Scorpius and I want to figure this out."

"It's not Muggle film, that's certain," Scorpius chimed in. "And it's true that the material's odd. I've never seen it before. But the discolored nature of the pictures makes me think that it's a negative, and _can_ be played or projected."

Ignatius frowned thoughtfully. "The nature of the film makes me think of something Uncle Ron told me once, about the Department of Mysteries… I think we could find out more if we talked to him, but of course, that's out of the question. We can't give them any sort of advantage."

Kate stared at her brother. "You're going to… help us?"

"This campaign's going to impact of all us, and we need to educate ourselves as much as possible," he said. "Our family does indeed seem to have a great deal of secrets."

His tone was slightly self-important, but Kate got the feeling that he was doing it as a joke. Ignatius, it seemed, was just as curious as she.

"I think I know how we can find out how to watch this," Kate said, with a sudden flash of inspiration. "James and Ravi probably hate me now, but there might be one last Weasley who could help us…" She glanced at Scorpius.

"No," Scorpius said, speaking up for the first time in quite a while, and sounding strangely vehement. "I'm not talking to her. She thinks she's better than everyone else because she's taking Arithmancy with our year! And we're always competing in class."

"Oh come on, Scorpius!" Kate pleaded. "You, Arthur, and she are the smartest people I know. If you three work together, I'm sure you'll solve it! And she'll know the story Ignatius mentioned—about Uncle Ron."

Ignatius, surprisingly, agreed with Kate's judgment. "Kate's right," he said, nodding. "I know you think no one notices, because you're not a wizard, but it's impossible to deny that you're a genius, Arthur. But you _will _need magical help, because this definitely isn't a Muggle film reel. I know we haven't gotten along… but we have to work together on this. Are you with us?"

Ignatius's speech seemed to melt Arthur's cool exterior a little. Kate knew that Arthur resented their brother for getting so much attention as a brilliant wizard—the fact that even _Iggy_ recognized Arthur's own abilities brought the Weasley embarrassed flush to his sallow face.

"Well…" he wavered. "All right. I guess I can tolerate working with you—just this once."

Scorpius crossed his arms defensively. "The brotherly love in this room is touching, really, but I _thought_ we were talking about me."

"If Iggy and Arthur can make up," Kate said reasonably. "I think _you_ can work with a rival too."

Scorpius gave her a dark look.

"You'll see, Kate," he muttered. "I'll never make friends with Rose Weasley."


	17. A Rose by Any Other Name

Disclaimer: No Rights Reserved

**A Rose by Any Other Name**

Every night before she went to bed, Rose checked her hair in the mirror– she wasn't vain, of course, and didn't put much store by looks, but each day chasing after James and Al and Hugo and Lily (making sure none of them got in _too_ much trouble), she always experienced a strange worry that _that_ would be the day her hair began to turn white. And she, not even a prefect! She, just barely into her third year!

Sometimes Rose felt like the oldest cousin—besides Ignatius, of course, but then, he was prematurely middle-aged.

And he and Kate had been acting extraordinarily strange lately.

First the red-haired Hufflepuff fifth-year was her brother's biddable shadow; then they hardly spoke and Kate spent her time between James and Ravi, bizarrely enough; and _now_ she seemed to have made up with Ignatius, fallen out with her brother's other Hufflepuff henchman Will, angered James and even the doting Ravi, and struck up a friendship with Scorpius Malfoy.

Rose was smart, but she had no idea what was going on.

The last Hogsmeade weekend, James had stormed into the Gryffindor common room with a scowling Ravi behind him—James muttering darkly to his friend in a corner, and the other just looking thoroughly depressed.

Well Rose had Arithmancy homework, and no time for the ridiculous family politics absorbing her cousins' energy.

All through lunch, Rose thought of this homework—star charts and complex equations—using the dozen peas on her plate as an abacus, until she noticed something strange going on at the Slytherin table.

Ignatius, Kate, and another Slytherin boy whose hair so obscured his face that she couldn't make him out, had surrounded Scorpius Malfoy at his seat and seemed to be arguing intently as he shook his head with considerable vehemence. Kate heaved a sigh visible even from Rose's place at the Gryffindor table, and Ignatius slapped a hand heavily onto the table, like a Muggle dictator giving a particularly impassioned speech. The other Slytherin placed a hand on Scorpius's shoulder and must have said something convincing, because Scorpius raised his hands in a bitter gesture of surrender and shook off the three others. He squared his shoulders, and looked straight at Rose.

Rose looked away and pretended she'd been thinking of Arithmancy the whole time, but she knew what to expect when the chime rang for afternoon classes.

"Hi Rose," Kate said shyly, materializing at her left shoulder.

"Hi Kate…" Rose answered, suspicious, glancing around and wondering where Ignatius and the unfamiliar Slytherin had gone. And Scorpius. Scorpius was the one to worry about. Kate was harmless, even with Ignatius pulling her strings, and Ignatius was ambitious and overbearing but not particularly dangerous. Scorpius, on the other hand…

He was a Malfoy, first of all, and a Slytherin. And whatever mum and dad said about "good" Slytherins existing, Rose was far to clever to imagine the son of Draco Malfoy happened to be one of them. In the back of her mind, Rose knew this wasn't quite fair; they'd barely ever spoken, she and Scorpius. But then, she considered, prejudices are rarely fair. Maybe she shouldn't be so quick to judge. Kate wouldn't befriend Scorpius Malfoy for no reason, right? Although, sweet and shy and innocent could so easily turn to silly and foolish and gullible.

"Rose?"

Her cousin had been saying something, while Rose's mind was far away.

"Sorry, I missed that. What do you need, Kate?"

And that's when Kathryn Weasley's face took on an expression Rose had never seen there before. It was strange and sly and very determined.

"What I need," Kate replied deliberately, "is for you to skip Arithmancy and come with me."

Rose laughed, incredulous. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about? Never mind. If this has something to do with James, I don't even want to know. I'll talk to you at dinner, all right? Right."

Rose hated to be a bully, but it was for the best. She didn't need to get involved in any of James and Ravi's trouble. But Kate didn't, as Rose half-expected, melt back into the agreeable girl she usually was.

"Wrong," she said. "Because if you don't, I'm going to tell everyone about the Marauder's Map—and I'll make sure you get some of the blame as well as our dear Potter cousins. So how about you follow me, all right? Right."

Rose, flabbergasted, followed.

Arthur, Scorpius, and Ignatius were waiting for the girls in the male prefects' bathroom. Rose felt the room was almost defiled by their presence, but she had to agree with Kate that Ignatius had been right to choose the place for their secret meeting. There were only a very small number of people who could possibly burst in on them, and Ignatius could strong-arm any and all of them into staying quiet. For being such a gangly, awkward sort of boy, Ignatius did have a certain threatening presence. Normally, Rose wouldn't consider that a good thing, but it served their purposes now. Whatever those purposes were.

Kate dragged Rose into the silence of the room. Ignatius and the mysterious Slytherin perched on either end of the large bathtub, glaring at each other, while Scorpius worked some silent spell on the door. Rose pretended not to notice that he was already able to cast spells without speaking. She had been practicing in private, but so far had not had much luck. Rose comforted herself with the thought that he was only a year ahead of her, and by the time she was a fifth-year, she would certainly by perfectly proficient.

Kate, back in the presence of the ringleaders, seemed to collapse in on herself with a wavering smile of apology at Rose.

"I did it!" she announced. Stating the obvious, maybe, but both Ignatius nodded proudly and the shaggy-haired Slytherin flashed Kate a grin. Who was he, anyway?

Oh, who cared? There were a whole host of other, more important questions to ask.

"How did you know James has the Marauder's Map? How do you even know what it is, for that matter?"

"We're Weasleys too, don't forget," Kate said with a pout as she sat down between the two on the bathtub. "We've heard the stories, same as you."

"And we didn't know he had it, until now," said the other Slytherin, raising his eyes to Rose's. "But thank you for confirming the fact. Kate and Ignatius told me they believed James was in possession of a powerful magical object that allowed him to sneak around the castle unseen, and it was only a very small leap from there to the answer." The boy tucked his mousy brown hair behind his ears and there, bold as brass, was little Arthur Weasley.

"Arthur!" she gasped. "What are you… how did you… you can't be here!"

"And yet here I am," he said coolly. It was strange, Rose thought, that she had never noticed before… but then, no one had ever paid Arthur much attention, had they? It wasn't fair, of course, and it wasn't his fault that he was a Squib, and everyone said he was so bright, but… All these years, Rose had thought that of those three cousins Ignatius was most like Uncle Percy. He looked just like him, anyway, with the same tedious sort of arrogance, and all he'd ever talked about was working in the Ministry some day, while Arthur with his nondescript appearance (and noticeably lack of ginger hair) favored Aunt Audrey. But here it was, clear as day, and Rose—who prided herself on her intelligence just as much as her magical ability—couldn't believe she'd never seen it before.

All the superficial things, the red hair, the glasses, the mannerisms… they were nothing. Rose had always known that, under it all, Uncle Percy was cold. Ruthless. And how ridiculous that it was only here, in a stolen Slytherin uniform in the prefects' bathroom at Hogwarts, did Rose realize that it was Arthur, not Ignatius, who was his father's son.

"Sharon?" Edie whispered, shaking her sister awake. "Sharon? You need to get up. There's something we have to do."

Edie's younger sister blinked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and squinting painfully as the harsh fluorescent lights flicked on above her head.

"Edie? What are you doing here?" Sharon's speech was still slurred from speech. She almost sounded concerned, a half-waking remnant of the sister who once loved her. Before… before all this.

Edie hated doing this more than anything. But if she couldn't convince Sharon to give her statement to the Wizengamot, it wasn't only the Muggle Protection Act that would disappear—it was Sharon's memories, and probably Edie's too. And nothing in the world, Muggle or magical, would make Edie let what happened to Herbert Chorley happen to her sister.

"Sharon, it's about what happened on the playground, years ago. You remember, don't you?"

Sharon went stiff as a board, and Edie could see that the memories and half-memories still terrified her. She nodded.

"Percy and I have been working on a—"

"Stop right there."

There it was; Sharon had woken up.

"Is this really something that needs to happen right now? In the middle of the night? In my bedroom?"

"I couldn't have mum and dad know that I—"

"Oh, I don't give a damn, Edie," Sharon spat. "You and that horrible Percy what's-his-name. Nothing good, and I mean nothing good, has ever come from him and his people."

Edie couldn't really dispute that. But how could she explain to Sharon what they were planning to do? How could she possibly expect Sharon to take part in some crazy scheme that might take thirty, forty years? She couldn't, not if she didn't want her little sister stuck in the same "protective custody" in which she found herself. No, it was better this way. It was the only way.

"All right then," Edie said, steeling herself for what had to come next. "This is what's going to happen: you will testify in front of the Ministry of Magic about the events of that summer. They will let you go, unharmed and whole. And then, it's over."

"No," Sharon whispered. "It's never over."

Edie couldn't dispute that either.

"I'm not going near those people ever again."

"Yes you are," Edie said. "Because if you don't, you will lose everything. Your memories, your mind. All gone. And this time, you won't get it back."

"And why's that?" Sharon asked, mocking.

"Because Percy's going to do it himself."

Sharon looked at her sister in disbelief. "He wouldn't…" But the expression on Edie's face must have told her otherwise.

"Fine," Sharon finally said, fuming. "I'll do it. I'll testify in front of your Ministry. But Edie, you listen to me very carefully. When this is done, you need to go. I mean, go for good. It's bad enough I'm stuck in this mess with you, but if anything happened to mum and dad I could never forgive you."

Edie was close to tears, but she knew they wouldn't move her sister. "Have you even forgiven me?"

Sharon's eyes were tearing up too, and for a moment Edie had the wild thought that they would hug and cry and everything would be better again. Everything would be like it was, when Sharon would come to Edie's room when she had a bad dream, or during or storm. They could be sisters again. It wouldn't matter, all the things that had happened, all the strange worlds they had to come to terms with. Because nothing was stronger than blood, right?

"No." One word from Sharon, and all of Edie's hopes crumbled. "No, I guess I haven't. When it's over, the trial I mean, I don't want to ever see you again. You keep your witches and wizards away from my family."

Dizzy, lightheaded, Edie nodded. It was an out-of-body experience. It was like she was looking at herself in the pensieve again. She watched herself stand up and stumble to the door in a daze.

"Percy will come for you in the morning," she heard herself say. "And you'll never hear from me again, you or our parents."

Edie flipped the light switch and shut the door behind her, but as she stepped outside under the moon and the streetlights, it was she who felt most in the dark.


	18. Department of Mysteries

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Department of Mysteries**

"Out of the way, out of the _way_!" Hermione Granger shouted as she as Percy shepherded Edie through the crowd of reporters and photographers blocking the Ministry entrance.

"We really should have chosen a different door," Percy muttered.

"You think?" Hermione asked. She sighed. "No, they need answers." As Junior Fellow in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the heroine of the Second War dealt with sensitive information and aggressive crowds on a regular basis. But this was different. The witches and wizards swarming them today seemed somehow less slick than usual, less polished. They seemed… afraid.

"Mr. Weasley!" one of them shouted, his tenor voice carrying above the others as Percy and Hermione finally got through to the raised dais where the brief, ad hoc press conference was to take place. With relatively little fanfare, the Muggle Protection Act had passed. Just another post-war piece of legislation protecting innocent people from reactionaries. It's exactly what Percy Weasley had wanted them to think. But somehow the story had leaked—that there were Muggles involved in more than just hypotheticals. Some girl who found out for herself about the magical community? The significance was enormous. No wonder the press was panicked.

"Mr. Weasley! Do you think the MPA will open the wizarding world to danger of revelation?"

That was the term newsmen and women had been bandying about: The Revelation. If it sounded apocalyptic, that's because it would be. Of course that would be the first question on everyone's mind.

"Friends, please," Percy replied in his reassuring baritone. He raised his hands for quiet, and the desperate press, wanting conciliation more than anything else, listened. "The security of the magical world remains my primary objective as Director of International Magical Cooperation, as well as that of Madame Granger and Magical Law Enforcement. The MPA only extends that same security to the Muggle members of the world community as well.

"We have a responsibility to all people, whatever their magical ability, to protect their rights and safety. The war is over, and now it's up to us to make sure no wizard can gain or exercise the amount of power we saw Voldemort wield. This is our duty not as wizards and witches, but as human beings.

"I admit, I had a selfish reason in writing the MPA as well—I'm in love with our star witness. I suppose now is as good a time as any to announce that Edie Filbert and I will be married later this month."

Quick-Quotes Quills flashed in the afternoon glare, along with the blinding flashes of cameras. Edie still hid her face with her hands, but Hermione knew, for better or worse, that she'd be on the front page of the Prophet tomorrow.

And she also knew, for better or worse, that Percy Weasley had not given that reporter a straight answer.

It had been easier than Arthur expected to convince Rose to help them. In the end, after much banter, Kate in frustration had simply thrown her the backpack with the film reels. As soon as Rose saw them, there was no going back. Rose couldn't resist a good magical puzzle.

"I think you're right," she said, after an hour of perusal. "These are Aunt Audrey's memories."

"Aunt Edie," Ignatius said glumly. He had not quite recovered from Arthur's relation of the story, or the picture Kate showed him in her Muggle Studies textbook: page 57, P. Weasley, H. Granger, and E. Filbert at a press conference outside the Ministry announcing the passage of the Muggle Protection Act.

"Why would she change her name?" Kate asked for the hundredth time.

"Because she and your father had enemies," Scorpius answered this time. "Because … There could be a dozen reasons why."

"And they're all in this film," Rose said in a hushed voice. "If that's what it is…"

Arthur nodded. "What are you thinking?"

Rose pursed her lips. "I'm not sure, but I wonder… you say you've heard all the Weasley stories. Well, what about the one where dad—that's Uncle Ron for you, I suppose—goes with mum, Uncle Harry, and the other members of Dumbledore's Army to the Ministry to save Sirius Black? And then, in the Department of Mysteries, Dad got caught in that room full of brains."

"And the tentacles looked like film," Ignatius finished. "How can we touch it, then? It nearly strangled Uncle Ron."

"I don't know," Rose said, shaking her head. "It's strange… the only way Uncle Percy could have this is if he had access to the Department of Mysteries somehow and… I don't know…"

"What, do you think he took out my mother's brain, placed it in a vat until it spat out her memories, and then stuck the brain back in her skull?" Ignatius asked, angrily. "This is getting ridiculous. I can't believe I ever agreed to—"

"Helloooo in there? It's me! Charity!"

Arthur opened the bathroom door to a blonde girl with an armful of books. "Any luck?"

"So much luck," she beamed. "Oh, hello there! You must be Rose. I'm Charity Burbage the Second. The unfortunate Charity Burbage the First was my grandmum. I've just been to her office… you know they still have all her things the way they were? I guess you can afford to, when you have a massive castle like this to house it all. I'm a Squib, by the way. I met Artie in Hogsmeade."

"Artie?" Ignatius raised a skeptical eyebrow. Arthur tried not to blush.

"Anyway, this is what I could find," Charity finished. She looked flushed from the exertion.

"I sent Charity to see if her grandmother had kept any books or papers on the more… esoteric aspects of Muggle Studies," Arthur explained. "She's quite a collector of magical knowledge, so I thought she might help us understand what this material is."

"There are esoteric aspects of Muggle Studies?" Scorpius asked sardonically. "I thought it was all airplanes and IP addresses."

"Oh, not at all!" Charity exclaimed, happy to find someone to talk to who was even only feigning interest. "Muggle Studies isn't just about Muggles and their lives. It's also about how the magical community had, historically, interpreted Muggle ideas and used them in wizardry. There are so many more Muggles than witches and wizards, you see, that most theories of magic actually come from Muggle arts and sciences."

That seemed to silence the group.

"It's true!" Charity went on, for all the world like a young professor thrilled to be teaching an attentive class. "This 'film,' for instance, kind of looks like magical photography, doesn't it? But it's as if the eyes were being used as the camera, since it's from your mother's perspective. There's probably an audio component too that we just can't access yet. It's as if someone case a spell on your mother to turn her mind into a human recording instrument, and then found a way to produce the tape later."

"In the brain room," Rose said.

Charity, who hadn't heard the story, just shrugged.

"But the film doesn't hurt us…" Kate said. "Does that mean it's broken?"

Rose gasped with sudden inspiration. "What if… when it was strangling him, my dad I mean, it wasn't _trying _to hurt him? What if it just wanted to _play the film_."

Scorpius and Arthur began to nod. "Because the mind was the camera," Scorpius ventured, "the mind is also the screen."

"But Uncle Ron's brain was the wrong screen," Arthur said. "It hurt him because he wasn't the recorder. So it's only mum who can watch the reel, isn't it? Because they're hers. And if they were back in that tank in the Ministry, I bet she'd be able to."

The members of the strange alliance looked at each other with trepidation, wondering if, maybe, they shouldn't have stumbled on this at all. But it was too late to stop.

Arthur frowned, his gray eyes hardening in an unsettlingly adult way for a thirteen-year-old boy. "If mum and dad made this, it means that at some point they had access to the Department of Mysteries and made the tape. And if it was hidden away at home, it means they're not supposed to have it."

Arthur ran his fingers through his hair, about the same time Ignatius did. They saw each other and stopped, horrified that they could be brothers after all.

"And now we brought _them_ into it," Ignatius said miserably, gesturing to Rose and Scorpius and Charity, non-siblings who couldn't be trusted. Probably, Ignatius didn't even trust Arthur.

"Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty," Kate said with her usual cheerful reasonableness. "Mum says that, it's a figure of speech," she explained when Scorpius gave her a puzzled look. "So mum and dad have secrets? Okay, fine. Dad works for the Ministry. Maybe he's a spy… or… something."

"But that would mean he's a spy for someone _else_, if he's hiding secrets from the Ministry," Rose pointed out. "Who do you think he's working for?"

"My father is not a traitor!" Ignatius spat, red-faced. "How dare you even suggest such a—"

"Technically," Arthur said, "since these are mum's memories and were in her office, it's she who would have to be the traitor. At least. Probably both of them." Nobody laughed. "Joking, joking. Calm down, everyone. There's a very simple explanation."

"All right, then," Rose dared him. "Explain."

"Well," Arthur began. "Dad's not exactly a nobody at the Ministry. Less of a nobody every day, actually. So him getting access to the Department of Mysteries isn't actually that much of a stretch. I mean, let's be serious here, Uncle Harry and company did it as fifth-years. And let's not forget that mum snuck into the Quidditch World Cup, and Diagon Alley, and Hogwarts as a Muggle."

"Family of career criminals, you have," Scorpius muttered. He looked pointedly at Rose. "We may be more alike than you think." (She turned away, disgusted.)

"_So_," Arthur continued, "it's not the how that's the mystery. It's the why. And Scorpius said it earlier—they had enemies. The Muggle Protection Act wasn't terribly popular in some circles, and mum was at the center of it. So she changed her name and copied her memories in case anything untoward happened. There. Perfectly rational."

"Except why hide it from the Ministry?" Rose asked. "The Ministry passed the Act; they knew about her. They knew exactly who she was. The mystery isn't why. It's what. What is on those reels that your parents have to keep so secret?"

Ignatius and Kate were shaking their heads in confusion; Charity looked ecstatic with the mystery of it all; and Scorpius just looked amused. But Arthur and Rose held each other's gazes. They'd been following their parents' political careers all their lives, and they were smart enough to put the pieces together. Carefully, he picked up his backpack and held out his hand to Rose.

"Rose, I need you to give me that reel, right now," Arthur said. Rose shook her head.

"I can't let you have it, Arthur. You know why."

"I told you not to bring her into this," Scorpius said, crossing his arms and smiling wryly.

"Arthur?" Kate asked. "Arthur, what's going on? Those are my mother's memories, Rose. They don't belong to you. It's wrong to take them."

"I'm sorry, Kate," Rose said, "But these are much too important. I have to show them to my parents. They'll know what to do."

"I don't think so," Ignatius said. "If this has something to do with the election, then you are certainly _not_ keeping those film reels."

"The election?" Kate squeaked. "What are you talking about?"

"Really, people, are we going to tiptoe around the issue all day?" Scorpius asked, derisive. "Kate, your parents are trying to bring down the International Statue of Secrecy, and Rose's parents are trying to stop them. Simple enough? Good." He whipped out his wand.

"_Stupefy!"_ he shouted, knocking Rose to the tiled bathroom floor.

"Scorpius!" Kate screamed, racing to where Rose lay in a crumpled heap. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!"

"Scorpius," Ignatius said solemnly, "This is very, very grave business. As Head Boy I'm going to have to report you, immediately."

Scorpius crossed the room and disentangled the memories of Edie Filbert from Rose Weasley's robes. He tossed them to Arthur.

"No you're not," he said, and left the room.

Kate looked beseechingly to Ignatius, and then Arthur. "_Do_ something!" she urged. "We need to help Rose. Iggy! Help her!"

Ignatius and Arthur ran their hands through their hair, simultaneously. Percy Weasley's sons.

"It doesn't matter what we do, Kate," Arthur replied. "We just started a war."


	19. Stranger Things Have Happened

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Stranger Things Have Happened**

Kate raced out of the bathroom to follow Scorpius.

"Scorpius!" she shouted, not caring that a handful of bewildered students milling in the corridor saw her emerge from the men's prefect bathroom. "Scorpius, what did you do?"

Scorpius stopped walking, back to Kate. "I stupefied her," he answered calmly. "I thought that was obvious."

Kate reached the unruffled Slytherin and gripped his arm, breathing heavily. "But… but why?"

Unpleasant thoughts swarmed Kathryn Weasley's mind, like the fact that none of this would have happened if she hadn't gotten so worked up over that picture in her Muggle Studies textbook. That her cousin Rose was lying unconscious because Scorpius Malfoy cursed her right in front of Ignatius and that nice girl Charity and Arthur. And Arthur! Iggy had been right—Arthur shouldn't be at Hogwarts, pretending to be a Slytherin, and acting like a Slytherin too. Events had spiraled completely out of control in just a few months (just a few moments), and even if they were by now out of Kate's control, she knew they were her fault. She fought back tears.

"Kate, come here," Scorpius hissed, pulling Kate aside into the shadows of a massive and massively musty wall hanging of the famous 14th-century Chauncey Oldridge, the first-known victim of Dragon Pox. Kate looked up at the poor man, writhing in pain as ugly red pustules erupted on his face and hands, and thought to herself: At this moment, I'd rather be him.

"Kate," Scorpius said again, shaking her arm. "Listen to me: if what your brothers say is true, you have to get word back to your parents right away."

"Word… about what?"

"About the film reels, of course! Blood Baron, Kate Weasley, where's your head?" Scorpius asked, exasperated. "You have to tell them that Arthur is here with the memories, that you know what they are, and that Rose knows too. Because once she waked up, you know the first thing she'll do is run to the Owlery and send for her parents."

"But Uncle Ron's in Ottery with grandmum and granddad," Kate explained, "My parents are in London. Even if I sent an owl right this second, hers would get there quicker!"

"That's why we're not sending owls," Arthur said disdainfully, materializing beside Scorpius. He grinned. "Bloody Baron, Kate Weasley, where's your head?"

Kate felt blood rush to her face, but—to her susprise as well as the two boys—it was fury, not embarrassment.

"Don't you DARE talk to me like that," Kate said in a tone of unmistakeable command and indignation. "This is an absolute MESS and it's YOUR fault just as well as mine. So don't treat me like I'm an IDIOT, Arthur. And tell me RIGHT NOW what the BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON!"

Arthur and Scorpius stood silent, amazed.

"I'm… sorry, Kate," Arthur said abashed. "I didn't mean anything by it. It's only… there are some benefits to being a Squib. For example, I know how to use a cell phone. I'll be on the phone with mum and dad within ten minutes if I can just get somewhere where there's less magical energy flying about. It fries the circuitboards, you know." He glanced around. "Or… maybe you don't know. I'm going to slip back to Hogsmeade and get this sorted out, okay?"

"Hogsmead weekend's over, Arthur. You'll never get past Filch." Kate was worried; the complications seemed endless. But Arthur always had an answer, same as Ignatius.

"Charity says she comes in and out regularly, visiting her grandmother's office. I'll leave with her, right through the front door."

Kate nodded, coming back to her normal self. "Fine. Just… what do we do about Rose?"

"Well that's easy," Scorpius answered. "You and Ignatius, being prefects, can go find whatever professor's handy and tell him that I ambushed Rose and stupefied her. It's not hard to believe, might even give me some credibility in my House. I'm supposed to be a Malfoy, after all."

"You'll get detention," Kate said. "Worse than that, when Rose wakes up and tells what happened."

"Except that she won't," Scorpius answered, as Arthur nodded his agreement. "She wants her mother and father, and Uncle Potter I assume, to know what your parents are doing—but I doubt she wants the entire world to know she's involved in this sort of thing. Not with the elections coming."

Kate had to admit that Scorpius was right. For the time being, it was between them. Only…

"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why would you help us? We'd barely said two words to each other at the start of term, and now you're conspiring with us about Ministry secrets that could… that could…"

"End the world?"

"Well, I guess that's one way of putting it."

"Kate," Scorpius said, "You and your brothers are worried about your family name, and what might happen if the wrong people found out that Minstry official Percy Weasley and his Muggle wife want to take down the International Statute of Secrecy. But you haven't thought about the real problem yet."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"What happens if they succeed." Scorpius's face lit up with an unnerving fervor. "If all this is true, your parents have been planning this for a very, very long time. Since before any of you were born. Since before they were married! We're just eavesdropping. Stop obsessing over the esotericisms of Weasley family history and think about the future! A world without a division between Muggles and magic. Just think! I am. And I want it. I'm helping you because I want it to happen."

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Have you thought about the consequences?" Edie asked, fingering her engagement ring. "Lying to everyone for who knows how long? Once we do this, Percy, there's no going back."

"If you're ready," Percy said, eyes steely behind his horn-rimmed glasses, "then I am."

As Edie stripped down into her underwear and stepped into the swirling glass tank in the Department of Mysteries, she wondered (not for the first time) what Percy Weasley's motivations really were for all this subterfuge. He was ambitious, she knew that much. But in his way, he probably did love her. And in her way, she loved him. They just had too much history.

But that wasn't Edie's only motivation.

In the world as it stood, she could never have equal rights, never be safe from magical law, never stop worrying about Sharon or mum and dad. As long as wizards kept Muggles in the dark, Edie and anyone without magical ability could never protect themselves. They were being treated like children, like second-class citizens. They had no voice in the Ministry of Magic, no control over their fates. People like Dolores Umbridge could wipe children's minds with impunity. She could hear that strange man, Albus Dumbledore, echoing in her head. _A great power… sometimes, I think, too great_.

It was indeed too great a power. Edie had been at the Battle of Hogwarts. She'd seen what Death Eaters could do. And she wondered if any other students there considered how lucky they were. There would never be a Battle of Ottery St. Catchpole, because the Muggle citizens couldn't defend themselves. They didn't even know what they had to defend against.

Not if Edie could help it. Maybe it seemed a stretch that one wizard and one Muggle woman could take down the International Statute of Secrecy, but stranger things had happened.

Edie knew. She'd been a part of them.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

A/N: Thank you for reading! With the final part of the final HP movie out, the franchise is ending... and so is this story. But not until I'm done with Part III, when we answer Scorpius Malfoy's question: What happens if they succeed?


	20. One last thing

One last thing…

This is an announcement to readers and followers of this story that A Muggle in Magical Britain is, indeed, complete. After all, when there's a trilogy the second part always has to end on a cliffhanger, right?

Right.

HOWEVER, part three is in the works, and if you still want to see what happens next I shall direct you now over to my third Muggle Studies story, "World War Wizard," which you can find at my profile, and in which _we_ might just find out what happens in a world with no International Statute of Secrecy.

Because let's be honest – would _you_ want to be kept in the dark?

- Tegildess


End file.
